Viaplay president & CEO Jørgen Madsen Lindemann
Nordic broadcaster Viaplay’s streaming subscription revenues were up 7.9 percent year-on-year in Q1, according to the company’s Q1 earnings this morning, delivering a very slight uptick in overall revenue growth of 0.1 percent.
Streaming has been at the very heart of Viaplay’s strategy over the past five years, symbolised by the company’s rebrand back in 2022 — Viaplay was previously just the name of the streaming service, under the wider group brand of NENT.
The broadcaster’s recent deal to take full ownership of satellite TV provider Allente has actually shifted the balance of its subscription revenues back in favour of traditional pay TV: non-streaming subscription revenues came in at SEK 2.18 billion in Q1, compared to SEK 2.12 billion for streaming. But this time last year, the gap between the two was over SEK 310 million, so it’s likely streaming will re-overtake traditional subscriptions in the next quarter or two.
Sports investment pays off
It’s not just subscription volume which is driving streaming growth. Average revenue per user (ARPU) was up year-on-year for both Viaplay’s direct-to-consumer streaming subscriptions and its business-to-business offering.
On this front, president and CEO Jørgen Madsen Lindemann said the company’s investment in premium sports is helping ramp up revenues.
Viaplay has made securing major sports rights a priority, signing rights deals in recent years for the Premier League, UEFA Champions League, Formula 1, and NHL among other international sports and leagues, alongside agreements for more locally focused winter sports and handball tournaments. And subscribers are increasingly opting for packages which include these live sports.
“The ARPU increases were not so much an effect of pricing, although we have raised prices for certain packages in certain countries,” said Lindemann, “but more the fact that we have a higher proportion of our D2C and B2B customers taking our premium sports offering. […] More D2C and B2B customers are choosing our sports offering because we have such a high-quality wide range and year-round offering of the very best sports content, and we have more coverage of major sports than ever before.”
Slight dip in ad revenues
On the advertising front, sales were down 1 percent on an organic basis. Lindemann said that digital and hybrid ad sales increased, but not by enough to offset the decline in linear TV ad sales.
While Viaplay will obviously be keen for that trend to reverse, it’s notable that there was no mention of a slowdown in the ad market due to macroeconomic conditions. It’ll be interesting to watch as other European broadcasters report their Q1 earnings whether the ongoing US/Iran conflict is having a noticeable impact on the European TV ad market.
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