On December 5th last year, Bonnier News made a public offer to buy the Swedish digital magazine subscription service Readly at SEK 12 per share in cash. By the end of January, the offer was raised to SEK 14.40 per share and after several extensions of the acceptance date, the final date was set to last Thursday, the 23rd of March.

As the last acceptance date now has expired, it is clear that Bonnier News did not achieve its ambition of buying 90 percent of the shares, which is needed to delist the company from Nasdaq Stockholm. However, Bonnier News is now the majority shareholder of Readly with 75,4 percent of the shares and according to Bonnier News’ CEO Anders Eriksson, the company will continue to try to reach 90 percent, which is needed to forcibly redeem the last shareholders to a delist.

“Readly has a strong and well-functioning product but has limited growth, lack of profitability and is in a situation with a limited cash register caused by several costly growth initiatives in recent years. Our assessment is therefore that the continued strategy should focus on the core business, with a reduced focus on growth, which is necessary to be able to secure a future for Readly, regardless of the form of ownership,” Eriksson continues.

Readly will soon call for an extra meeting of shareholders and elect a new board. “What the new board will look like is not quite clear, but the fact that there will be a new board is clear and feels natural in a situation like this”, according to Eriksson.

The new film, One More Time, is a dramedy with Hedda Stiernstedt in lead. Stiernstedt plays 40-year-old Amelia, who is hit by a truck the night of her birthday. She wakes up back in 2002, on her 18th birthday, with the chance to relive her best day and make her life the perfect vision of what she’d intended it to be. The film is written by Tove Forsman and Sofie Forsman, known from two other Swedish Netflix series, Young Royals and The Playlist. Jonatan Etzler is directing the film and the production company behind it is Breakable. One More Time premiers on Netflix the 21st of April.

Netflix’s new Swedish drama series is Barracuda Queens. Loosely inspired by true events, Barracuda Queens follows a group of young women in the 90s who commit crimes to rebel, seek thrills and get revenge on men that have done them wrong. The series stars Alva Bratt, Tindra Monsen, Sandra Zubovic, and Izabella Scorupco, among many others. The production company for the series is Asp Varhos and Amanda Adolfsson is the director. Barracuda Queens comes to Netflix the 8th of June.

Bäst i Test is one of the most popular TV shows in Sweden. It is based on the original British version Taskmaster, which has been sold to several countries, including Sweden. Since 2017, the show has been available on Swedish public service broadcaster, SVT. But after the seventh and current season, the show will no longer be available on SVT. The reason for this is a price hike for the rights from the British ownership company Avalon.

“We simply had to release Bäst i Test. The reason was that the British format owners suddenly demanded a price that we are unwilling and unable to pay. I’m talking about extreme money that we didn’t think was justified”, says SVT’s program director Eva Beckman. No exact numbers have been communicated, but according to Anton Glanzelius, program commissioner at SVT, the price was raised by several hundred percent.

The rights for the show have now been picked up by TV4. “We are very happy about the opportunity to take over Bäst i test, which is a fantastic format, and with it also the popular hosts Babben Larsson and David Sundin”, says Fredrik Arefalk, TV4’s channel and content director.

In 2019, the show won the Swedish award Kristallen for best program and the following year best entertainment program. The next season of the show will come to TV4 during next year.

Marie Nilsson: Kontodelarna lever osäkert när streamingjättarna jagar intäkter – Dagens Media

Et stigende antal svenskere betaler for podcasts – Mediawatch

Sweden: Significant growth in podcast households – Advanced Television

TVOD in Sweden reaches record levels in 2022 – Broadband TV News

Netflix drag – så ska kontodelare jagas – Svenska Dagbladet

Stort tapp för nya poddar i världen – “Kärvare läge” – Sveriges Radio

Nordics: 3 million SVOD accounts are borrowed from other households – Piracy Monitor