– Stockholm Film Festival rejects Russian movies

– Swedish Breakit donates all revenue from new subscriptions to Unicef – and doubles the amount of money raised

– Telenor cuts Russian TV channel

– Berwaldhallen sacks conductor Valery Gergiev over failure to denounce Putin

– Numerous Nordic telecom actors offer free calls to and from Ukraine

– YouTube will stop running advertisements on channels from Russian state-backed media and certain other accounts, included in sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine

– Meta, parent company of Facebook, will restrict access to Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik on its platforms across the EU

– Netflix will not comply with new Russian rules to carry 20 state-backed channels

– Disney, Sony, and Warner Bros pause theatrical film releases in Russia

– Twitter will mark tweets with links to Russian state-backed media and limit their reach

– TikTok is restricting access to some Russian state-controlled media accounts in the EU

On Friday last week, Discovery reported its results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2021.

One year post launch, the Discovery Plus streaming service has surpassed 22 million subscribers. That being said, subscriber growth slowed down in the fourth quarter of 2021 (+2 million quarter on quarter) compared to Q3 (+3 million QoQ) and Q2 (+4 million QoQ).
Total revenue in Q4 2021 amounted to USD 3.19 billion, representing a +11% growth year over year – which surpassed analysts’ consensus ahead of the report (USD 3.12 billion). In Q4, US advertising revenues grew +5% while international advertising revenues increased +10%.

During the earnings call, management called out Netflix and Disney as prime competitors, but emphasized that the upcoming combined WarnerMedia-Discovery company would not try to “win the spending war.” Instead, management aims to achieve success by a diversification of their offerings. The new company will not be focused solely on their SVOD business models but will instead take a three “funnel” approach, including a subscription-only service, an ad-lite service, and a free digital service.

In the US, there are several examples of other prominent media actors utilizing this approach, including;

– Paramount (formerly known as ViacomCBS) has long employed this strategy, where its’ free service Pluto TV (bringing in more than USD 1 billion in advertising revenues) serves as a marketing vehicle for Paramount+, which offers both ad-supported and ad-free tiers.

– NBCUniversal has chosen to take a similar approach with Peacock – which has an ad-supported, free, tier as well as two ad-free, paid, tiers that include additional content.

– that the company will partner with Hayu in the Netherlands

– Something Stupid and The Guilty as the first titles on Viaplay’s Dutch scripted slate

– a long-term partnership with Starzplay that will make all new Starzplay Originals available through Viaplay as part of a regular subscription, along with Starzplay’s line-up of films and series from Lionsgate and other major Hollywood studios.

Following, HBO Max will launch in the Netherlands on March 8^th. HBO Max is entering with the lowest subscription fee of any streaming service in this market (for people who sign up in March). HBO Max is employing the same campaign at launch as it did in the Nordics – with a 50% reduction of the regular subscription price. The launch in the Netherlands is part of the second wave of European launches in 15 countries, including e.g., Croatia, Poland, and Portugal.

In the Nordics, HBO added 635 000 subscribing households following the Max launch, according to Mediavision analysis.

DEBATT: Dags att belysa ekonomin i ljudboksmarknaden – Per Almgren & Erik Wikberg

DEBATT: Att dra alla tjänster över en kam blir direkt felaktigt – Niclas Sandin

DEBATT: Viktigt att hålla fokus på marknaden som helhet – Per Almgren & Erik Wikberg

Read up on Mediavision’s latest insights on the Swedish audiobook market here; 120 000 additional subscribing households on Swedish audiobook market.

Netflix faces Nordic challenges – Broadband TV News

Swedish music subscriptions grew 7% in 2021 – High Resolution Audio

Så mycket dyrare har det blivit att strömma film och serier – SVT 

Tufft år för svenska ljudboksbranschen – tillväxttakten halverades – Dagens Industri 

Could TikTok spur growth of AVOD in the Nordics? – Senal News 

Bråket visar varför Spotify behöver Rogan – SVD

Poddarna – makten och pengarna – SR 

Därför kom Clubhouse-hysterin för ett år sedan – och därför dog den – SR

Hushållen tecknar fler abonnemang – rekordsiffror för S-SVOD under 2021 – Dagens Media