Yesterday, this year’s season of the UEFA Champions League commenced – to the great joy of more than 2.5 million Nordic viewers. Mediavision’s newly published Sports Analysis 2022 concludes that Champions League is one of the most popular leagues to watch among Nordic 15-74-years-olds.

The high interest in viewing the UEFA Champions League also translates into high willingness to pay for the league. More than 700’ 15-74-year-olds in the Nordic countries state that they explicitly pay to watch this league. As an average, 19% of those with an interest in a league or tournament pay to watch. For Champions League, the equivalent is as high as 28%.

Consequently, and not particularly surprising, UEFA Champions League is considered as one of the most valuable sports rights on the Nordic market. The current rights holders are Telia in Finland and Sweden, Viaplay in Denmark, and TV 2 in Norway. These agreements are expected to be renegotiated in the near future.

The official Nordic launch date for the new streaming service SkyShowtime has now been announced – the service will enter the Nordic market on the 20th of September. This new streaming service is the result of a joint venture between Comcast’s Sky and Paramount Global.

SkyShowtime will offer exclusive movies and series from studios such as, Showtime, Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, and DreamWorks Animation. Among the titles that will be available at launch, there are “The Rising”, “American Gigolo” and the complete collection of 21 seasons of “Law and order”. Stated in their press release, the service will also “include local originals, documentaries and specials shows from the markets of availability”.

In the Nordics, SkyShowtime will replace Paramount Plus. The existing Paramount Plus subscribers will not automatically be transferred to SkyShowtime but will have to start a new subscription, as their existing subscription will no longer be renewed by the 20th of September. The new streaming service will be available direct-to-consumer via the SkyShowtime app and through the website. The monthly price will be EUR 6.99 in Finland, SEK 79 in Sweden, NOK 79 in Norway, and DKK 69 in Denmark. This is a slight increase from the price of Paramount Plus, which e.g., is priced at SEK 69 per month.

The first two episodes of the prequel to “The Lord of the Rings” was released on Amazon Prime Video last Friday. The premiere attracted over 25 million viewers on its first day, breaking all previous streaming records for the service. In comparison, HBO Max’s big premiere of “House of the Dragon” had close to 10 million viewers on the release day, but the numbers cannot be equally compared, since HBO’s figures include viewers for both broadcast TV and streaming. Regardless of the difficulties in comparing the numbers, the battle between the two is indeed epic.

When seeing the viewing figures for the premiere, it may be assumed that Amazon’s executives drew a sigh of relief – as the budget for this series also was at an all-time-high. A whooping USD 715 million have been spent on the development of this series. Breaking down the costs, USD 250 million were spent on the rights agreement between Amazon, Warner Bros, and the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien. Production costs of the first season reached USD 465 million, resulting in an average cost per episode of USD 58 million. That is nearly double the cost per episode of the previous record holder – the fourth season of Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” which ran USD 30 million per episode. In comparison, Warner Bros. Discovery spent under USD 20 million per episode for the “Game of Thrones” prequel “House of the Dragon”.

While these two series have been the talk of the town for the last couple of weeks, Mediavision’s Content Analysis shows that Netflix is the front runner in providing content within the fantasy genre to the Nordic market. Looking at total runtime, Netflix offers the largest supply of fantasy content in the Nordics – ~34 000 minutes across 170 titles. Following, HBO Max offers approximately ~29 000 minutes of fantasy content across 110 titles. Comparably, Amazon Prime Video offers ~15 000 minutes of fantasy content, albeit across more titles than HBO Max at 150. This shows that Netflix and HBO Max more heavily rely on series rather than movies, which Amazon does.

Perhaps, the launch of the “The Lord of the Rings” prequel could result in a proper breakthrough for Amazon on the Nordic market, as the service has struggled to attract a high household penetration compared to some of the other global giants. Mediavision follows this development closely.

Hundra procent tillväxt för betalpoddar: ”Betalmarknaden har fått fäste” – Dagens Media

Sweden boasts more streaming subscriptions than ever – Cineuropa

Sweden: Streaming services soar despite economic concern – Advanced Television

Då slås HBO Max samman med Discovery Plus – Di Digital

Flere svenske husstande abonnerer på en streamingtjeneste – Media Watch