Last week, Disney announced that it will expand its ad-supported offering to several more markets on November 1st. These markets include Canada, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Disney Plus’ ad-supported tier was first introduced in the US at the end of the last year and had garnered 3.3 million subscribers by the end of the company’s second quarter.
Alongside the introduction of the new ad-tier, Disney is revamping its subscription offerings. Currently, the Nordic market only has one subscription plan, but as of November, there will be three tiers. Firstly, the new ad-supported plan starting at EUR 5.99 per month. The second option will be a standard plan with no ads, allowing two concurrent streams and the option to download content, which starts at EUR 8.99 per month. Lastly, the premium tier, offering enhanced video quality and four concurrent streams, which will be available at EUR 11.99 per month.

Existing Disney Plus subscribers in the selected markets will automatically be transferred to the premium tier if they don’t switch to one of the new lower-priced plans.

Disney is also preparing to act against password sharing on its streaming services, following the footsteps of Netflix which rolled out restrictions on account sharing widely a few months ago. The company’s CEO Bob Iger stated that account sharing among Disney Plus users has been “significant”, without giving an exact number.

The company plans to announce its new account-sharing terms by the end of this year, with a rollout planned for 2024. “Later this year, we will begin to update our subscriber agreements with additional terms on our sharing policies, and we will roll out tactics to drive monetization sometime in 2024,” Iger stated.

Going forward, TV4 Play will be available in five different tiers for customers. As previously, one free ad-supported version will be offered. Also, a paid ad-supported version with additional content at SEK 59 per month and furthermore a more expensive version without advertising at SEK 149 per month.

In addition to these options, two sports packages are available, containing all the sports that were previously available via C More. The first sport package costs SEK 399 per month while the more extensive sports package, including SHL and Hockeyallsvenskan, costs SEK 549 per month.

– This is a historic and important day for TV4. TV4 Play is the platform from which we will build TV4’s future. TV4 Play as users know it, with news and entertainment, is always open and free. At the same time, as of today we also offer the option to buy more content, with or without advertising. With the new TV4 Play, we now gather Sweden on one and the same service where all users can find all our content, stated Mathias Berg, CEO at TV4.

C More users were automatically transferred to TV4 Play users at lunchtime on Monday. Some users reported technical problems, but in general, the transition seems to have been successful.

The collaboration between Spotify and the membership platform Patreon was first announced back in March 2023. The partnership would enable Patreon podcast creators to share their subscriber feeds on Spotify via the Spotify Open Access API. Now, after a few months of testing, the integration is available to all creators and listeners. Podcast listeners can now link their Spotify and Patreon accounts, gaining access to stream exclusive Patreon podcasts on Spotify.

“Many podcasters use Patreon to connect with their fans, and for the first time ever, they can now link their accounts so fans can access and listen to these shows on Spotify. This partnership gives podcasters a new opportunity to reach Spotify’s global audience to increase their income and grow their show.” says Gustav Söderström, Co-President and Chief Product and Technology Officer at Spotify.
 

Last week, Spotify also expanded its AI-powered DJ feature to selected markets globally. The feature is now available in 50 markets around the world.

Spotify’s AI-powered DJ debuted for Spotify Premium users in North America six months ago. The is a radio DJ, which personalizes users’ listening through a curated music selection based on the user’s listening history. It also includes spoken-word commentary from a synthetic voice based on Spotify’s Head of Cultural Partnerships, Xavier “X” Jernigan.

Sweden is the only Nordic country included in the recent expansion, together with Australia, New Zealand, South Africa among others. The feature is only available in English.

Prognosen: Du kommer få betala mer för sämre serier – Expressen

Pirat-tv del av Viaplays fall – Aftonbladet

Nearly half of Nordic SVoD viewers would pay up to EUR 3 extra monthly for more local content – Telecompaper

Nordiske streamingkunder vil betale ekstra for mere lokalt indhold – Mediawatch

Hushållen öppnar plånboken för nordiskt innehåll – Dagens Media

Trendbrott: Fler svenskar piratkopierar film och tv – Dagens Nyheter

Streamingbranschen har fått växtvärk – Sveriges Radio

Poll: Illegal streaming on the rise in Nordic countries – Yle