One of the biggest football events is happening this weekend. It’s the UEFA Champions league final between Manchester City and Inter, which will be played in Istanbul this Saturday. Manchester City secured its spot in the final by beating Real Madrid in the semi-final. As Manchester City secured the Premier league title a few weeks ago, as well as the FA Cup title this past Saturday, the team now has the chance to make a historic season with three trophy wins. Only its rivals Manchester United, which lost the FA Cup final, has won these three titles in a single season before.

But to do so, Manchester City must beat the Italian team Inter in the Champions league final. Inter finished third in the Serie A after winning against Torino last weekend. In the Champions league, Inter advanced to the final after an aggregated 3-0 victory in the semi-finals against rival AC Milan.

In the Nordic market, C More/MTV hold the rights to the Champions league in Finland and Sweden. TV2 holds the rights in Norway and Viaplay Group in Denmark.

Together with the English Premier league, Champions league is the league with highest viewing interest throughout the Nordics. Around 3,3 million 15-74-year-olds in the Nordics state interest in watching the tournament. This is concluded in Mediavision’s Sports Analysis 2023.

Mediavision’s Sports Analysis 2023 covers 19 sports and over 100 leagues/tournaments and offers a comprehensive overview of the most important KPIs related to consumer preferences and sports viewing behaviour. For more information or order, please contact adrian.grande@mediavision.se.

Swedish Podx Group has completed yet another acquisition. This time, the company has acquired Listen, a leading independent podcast and radio production company in the UK.

The deal is described by Podx group as a milestone acquisition. Listen works with many talents, brands, and platforms including BBC, Audible, Spotify, Amazon Music, Sky Sports, among others. The company won the APA’s 2021 Production Company of the year and ALF’s Best Start Up Agency of 2022. Listen, which joins Podx Group immediately, will continue to be run by the same management and will operate in the same way, from the current offices.

This is the third acquisition made by Podx Group this year. The company previously acquired the Finnish podcast company Suomen Podcastmedia in March, as well as a majority stake in Swedish production company Filt back in February. Staffan Rosell, CEO at PodX Group, stated in a press release that “PodX continues to look for more world class podcast businesses, producers and IP, and are primarily focused on Europe and Latin America to find them.”

Yesterday, Viaplay Group announced the appointment of Jorgen Madsen Lindemann as the new CEO. This comes after previous CEO Anders Jensen offered his resignation, which was accepted by the board of directors. Jorgen Madsen Lindemann starts his role as the new CEO of Viaplay Group with immediate effect.

Viaplay Group also announced a downgrade of its short-term outlook for 2023, following an accelerated decline in the operational environment and slower than expected completion of its cost savings program. Viaplay has also withdrawn its long term operational and financial guidance. An updated medium-term outlook is expected to be provided in conjunction with the publication of the Group’s Q2 results, on 20 July 2023.

In other news regarding Viaplay, several of its locally produced series are now coming to the FAST streaming service Pluto TV. Some of the Viaplay series which are now available on Pluto TV are In the head of a killer, The Zebra Room and Thunder in my heart.

Back in April this year, the latest season of Viaplay’s reality series Paradise Hotel premiered exclusively on Pluto TV. The release generated a lot of attention from both the media and the public, since this season of Paradise Hotel was set aside by Viaplay, after allegations of sexual abuse in the previous season. According to Pluto TV, the release of Paradise hotel attracted many new viewers to the service. Therefore, Pluto TV decided to add another slate of locally produced Viaplay series to their service.

A total of eleven series, in the genres of Young adults and True crime, are being added to Pluto TV. Eight of which are available now, with three series coming the 19th of June. The series are available on both dedicated channels and on video on-demand. Pluto TV’s on demand section is powered by Viafree, Viaplay’s former ad-supported streaming service.

Trendbrott: Fler svenskar piratkopierar film och tv – Dagens Nyheter

Streamingbranschen har fått växtvärk – Sveriges Radio

Marie Nilsson: Nya rekord för hushållens medieköp trots vikande konjunktur – Dagens Media

Så mycket dyrare har bio, konserter och böcker blivit – Dagens Nyheter

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

Betalväggen funkar – vi betalar mer än någonsin för poddar – Breakit

Danske og svenske husstande bruger flere penge på medieabonnementer – Mediawatch

Mediavision: Streaming growth in Finland, pushed by telcos – Broadband TV News