The English top tier domestic football league, Premier League, has concluded a deal for its next broadcasting period in the UK. The broadcasters are Sky Sport, TNT Sports and BBC Sport, and the deal covers the four-year period starting season 2025/26 and is the largest sports media rights deal ever concluded in the UK.

Comcast-owned Sky Sport thus maintains its stranglehold of the Premier League rights, securing four of five packages of live games. Warner Bros. Discovery-backed TNT netted the other package of rights, while BBC Sport was awarded highlights rights for all 380 Premier League matches each season. The agreement is worth a total of GBP 6.7 billion, which is an increase of four percent compared to the latest Premier League TV deal.

The interest for the English Premier league is substantial in the Nordics as well. It is the league with highest viewing interest throughout the Nordics, together with the Champions league. Around 3.3 million 15-74-year-olds in the Nordics state interest in watching the league. This is concluded in the 2023 edition of Mediavision’s Sports Analysis. Viaplay Group holds the broadcasting rights for the Premier league throughout the Nordics.

Spotify Wrapped is an excellent example of creating a product out of consumer data. The feature has grown from 30 million engaging users in 2017, to more than 120 million engaging users of the 2021 edition. Last year, Spotify Wrapped grew even bigger, seeing engagement reaching 156 million users by December 31st.

The year-end review concept has inspired other companies and industries. For example, Washington Post launched a similar feature last year, summarizing the users’ reading habits. Swedish grocery chain ICA and travel guide Tripadvisor are other examples of companies who have launched a similar year summarizing feature. Music streaming services Apple Music and Youtube Music have as well released year-end recaps for its users.

A few days after the release of Spotify Wrapped, the audio giant also announced organizational changes to Spotify. A note from CEO Daniel Ek was shared with all Spotify’s employees and later posted on its website. In the note, Ek states that “to align Spotify with our future goals and ensure we are right sized for the challenges ahead, I have made the difficult decision to reduce our total headcount by approximately 17% across the company”.

The layoffs represent approximately 1,500 jobs. This is the third round of layoffs from Spotify in 2023. In June, Spotify cut about 6 percent of its work force and another few hundred employees was let off in January.

Last Friday, Viaplay Group presented its postponed Q3 report, as well as an extensive recapitalization program. Here are some of the highlights from the report:

• Group organic sales grow 7% YOY with reported net sales of SEK 4,536m.
• Viaplay organic sales grow 17% YOY – Viaplay now represents 52% share of the group net sales.
• Total reported operating income of SEK -538 million compared to SEK -100 million in Q2 2022.
• Comprehensive recapitalization program was announced.

The recapitalization plan has been made to address Viaplay’s financial challenges and provide for the future development of the group. Viaplay states that it aims to raise SEK 4 billion in new equity, write down SEK 2 billion in debt and renegotiate the terms of debt totaling SEK 14.6 billion. The company plans to issue 4 billion new shares at a price of SEK 1 each. The plan needs to be approved by an extraordinary general meeting on January 10th and by at least 90 percent of the bondholders which attends another extraordinary meeting on December 29th.

Viaplay’s CEO Jørgen Madsen Lindemann state that their non-core international operations in the Baltics, Poland and the UK have continued to perform below expectations. As of this, Viaplay have reached an agreement to sell their UK operation. Viaplay also will exit Baltic and Polish markets by the summer of 2025.

Return of media piracy fuelling other crimes, expert says – Yle

Experterna: Medierna som går framåt när ekonomin viker – Dagens Media

Krisen i tv-branschen fortsätter – nu ökar piratkopieringen – Aftonbladet

Tittarna accepterar medioker tv när de inte behöver betala – Expressen

Marie Nilsson: Så påverkas innehållet av tv-krisen – Dagens Media

Sweden: Household media spend reaches record level in Q3 – Senal News

Köp av medietjänster ökar: ”Ett hyfsat billigt nöje” – SR

Svenske husstandes medieforbrug slår ny rekord – Mediawatch

Trots krisande marknad – medieutgifterna ökar – Dagens Media

Summerat: Svenskarnas kontodelning kostar en miljard – Tidningen Näringslivet

Trots tuffa tider för hushållen – många fortsätter betala för strömningstjänster – SVT