Q1 web TV viewership
Mediavision concluded last week (press release April 3) that Swedes love streaming services and are avid streamers. This week, Mediavision takes a look at the major “free” Swedish web TV services (i e AVOD and public service) SVT Play, Viafree, Dplay and TV4 Play. According to MMS, all of these saw an aggregated growth in viewing during Q1 compared to the same period of last year.

Analyzing the major free services in Q1, SVT achieves both the largest number of started streams and largest viewing in terms of hours. However, Discovery is showing the biggest increase over the corresponding period last year, highly driven by the Olympics. Its’ increase in streams was 95% and in hours spent +77%. SVT saw an increase in started streams by +63% and +46% in hours spent. TV4 increased it’s started streams by 31% and hours spent by 21% while Viafree decreased its number of started streams by -18% and hours spent being on the same level. Viafree’s decline can partly be explained by the move of popular docu/entertainment “Paradise Hotel” (on the service Q1 2017). The 2018 season of Paradise Hotel is set to air this fall.

Q1 18 (Jan 1 – Mar 31) compared to Q1 17 (Jan 1 – Mar 31)

Spotify’s first week on the stock market

Spotify’s listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) last week was a hit. On the first day of trading the stock started trading at $33 above the reference price ($132). During its first week, the share initially declined before stabilizing just below the $150 mark. Now, into its’ second week, the price has started climbing again, closing Tuesday the price per share was $154.9, the highest closing price since trading started last week.

NYSE: SPOT USD (Apr 3 – Apr 10)

Re-regulation of the Swedish gambling market

On April 5, the Swedish government presented the bill “A re-regulated gambling market”. The bill proposes a new gambling act to regulate all actors on the Swedish gambling market. Including the purely digital off-shore operators (eg Unibet, Bet365 and Betsson) who currently operate outside of Swedish legislation and tax jurisdiction.

Mediavision found (press release September 9 2017) that 3 in 5 newly registered gambling accounts in Sweden were with off-shore regulated operators. Given that an increasing share of the Swedish gambling market is operating outside of Swedish legislation, a new gambling act has become increasingly important to implement. The bill, if it passes, is planned to result in a new gambling act in January 2019.

One important factor addressed in the gambling bill is advertising. In short, the bill proposes equal terms for all advertisers and publishers, which could alter the current ad market quite profoundly. To illustrate, the Swedish TV ad market could undergo substantial changes as the new gambling act would allow all regulated actors to advertise on equal terms. Currently, the offshore-regulated operators can only advertise in channels that broadcast from outside the Swedish border. Potentially, this could be a challenge for actors such as MTG and Discovery (regulated in the UK) – today the main media channels for the non-Swedish gambling operators. According to Mediavision analysis, approx. 15-20% of MTG’s and Discovery’s ad inventory consisted of off-shore gambling ads during Q1 2018.

Mediavision press releases: