Exclusive: Despite Recent Turnover Atop the Company, Viaplay Looks to Chart New Streaming Path in United States
In the era of streaming consolidation, as media companies from Warner Bros. Discovery to Paramount Global to Disney are all finding new ways to house their content in one centralized service, it can be a fraught exercise to launch a new subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service, especially one that is aiming to appeal to a very narrow audience. However, after becoming a major player in the European streaming market, Viaplay launched in the United States in late February, looking to carve out a unique niche in an under-served corner of the streaming space.
The Swedish-owned streamer has built its brand on delivering a very special and specific brand of content native to that part of the world. While many people describe Viaplay’s type of programming as “Nordic Noir” for its dark — literally and figuratively — crime stories, the company’s chief commercial officer for North America Vanda Rapti says that it is much more than that.
“I would say it is a way of shooting, that’s both on Nordic Noir and the crime shows, but also on comedy,” she explained. “We have a lot of comedies — or dramedies. In Europe, they might be considered simple comedies because there’s a lot of funny elements, but it’s not like a sitcom where you have to laugh with everything. It’s more like down to life … A real or authentic way of portraying things.”
After growing to 7.64 million global subscribers at the end of March (2.9 million in international markets and 4.74 in the Nordics), the service is aiming to hit goals of 4 million international customers and 5 million Nordic subscribers by the end of the year. To be able to meet these totals, further expansion was always going to be needed, and the U.S. was an inevitability. As Rapti told The Streamable, the American market is both “massive” and “very competitive,” meaning that the streamer will have to make a case for itself to the new audience by mixing its existing original programming with titles that could appeal to a broader international — and specifically American — audience. However, there will be limitations to what types of shows Viaplay invests in stateside.
“We will not take a $12 million per episode show away from or Netflix, we would not go into such investments,” she said, “but in line with the model that we follow, there are strong properties that we would want to have for our main markets and that they have some U.S. element. So yea, we will have increasingly more English shows always with the Nordic-storytelling element [that is] in our DNA. But we will not go into a massive content investment, at least in my watch … I’m very adamant on getting a good return of investment in the market.”
Viaplay is no stranger to English-language content; whether it is series like “100 Code” — which stars Dominic Monaghan as a New York City detective who is investigating a serial killer on both sides of the Atlantic — and “The Dreamer” — which features Connie Nielsen as author Karen Blixen and is in both Danish and English — or show line “Partisan,” about an unusual gated agricultural community, which features English dubbing.
However, despite having English-language titles in its library and being open to adding more, Rapti confirms that the goal isn’t to replicate the size of its Nordic offerings on the U.S.-based version of the service. Instead, the company sees its expansion to America as a complement to its European business.
“We are not aspiring to have the 20,000 hours that we have in the Nordics [in the U.S.],” she said. “Unlike other streamer launches in the U.S. where the investments and risks are high, Viaplay is mostly monetizing on its European investments, with the incremental spend in its U.S. operations being minimal, which won’t make profitability a difficult game in the U.S.”
That was confirmed by an Ampere Analysis study released last month that showed that while 40% of the content available on Viaplay in the U.S. and United Kingdom is of the popular Nordic Noir crime genre, in total, those versions of the platform have roughly 38% of the number of original titles that the service does in its native countries.
Rapti said that many of the shows that Americans associate with the Nordics were produced by Viaplay and licensed or co-commissioned with other outlets before the advent of the company’s own streaming service. But whatever the content, the streamer clearly believes that there is a market for Viaplay’s brand of programming in the United States, even if it is only additive to the native Nordic platform’s reach. Rapti said that the estimates for the American appeal of Nordic programming vary significantly, and she takes those on both extremes with a pinch of salt.
“There are the very positive reports, which recognize the increase in value and appreciation of non-English content, especially Nordic, and give very high numbers for the potential of subscribers,” she said. “I think those, if I want to be cautious, might be missing the fact that just because a consumer watches a few shows on Netflix that are Nordic, it doesn’t automatically mean that the moment he sees a service with only or mostly Nordic content, he’s gonna immediately subscribe to that service.”
While the expansion of Nordic content has created a new audience in the U.S. and around the world with Netflix hits like “Ragnorak,” “Borgen,” “Love and Anarchy,” “Post Mortem: No One Dies in Skarnes,” “Deadwind,” and more, Viaplay isn’t banking on converting every single person who has watched a single episode of “The Valhalla Murders.”
“I very much believe that, of course, we have very strong content that if it gets the chance to be exposed in front of the eyes of the audience … they can get hooked, appreciate it, and keep a subscription,” Rapti said.
To ensure that Viaplay’s programming is seen by as many people as possible, Rapti indicated that the streamer would be looking to explore partnering with other brands to create bundles of different kinds. While Viaplay is hoping to provide some benefit to its partners, the ultimate goal is to introduce the streamer to consumers that might otherwise not think that they are in the market for Nordic content.
Rapti did not disclose what types of partners the streamer was looking to work with, outside of Roku and Comcast, which were announced at launch, or whether future partnerships would be specifically in the streaming space. However, she did confirm that more partnerships were coming and that bundles were very much a part of the company’s marketing plan.
“We have more coming up of course, and we’ve signed a few deals that we haven’t announced yet,” she said. “But, yes, the philosophy is very much on the bundles … That can be done by specific bundles, specific promotions, or targeted opportunities through various corporations. And of course, with the local various traditional carriers.”
The appeal of this type of exposure is obvious for a moderately sized streamer that is still looking to get its footing after some massive, recent changes in leadership. Earlier this month, the company downgraded its financial outlook for the quarter and all of 2023. In the same announcement, Viaplay Group confirmed that CEO Anders Jensen had resigned his position and that Jorgen Madsen Lindemann, who is the former CEO of Viaplay’s previous parent company, would take over in the role effective immediately.
As the direct-to-consumer streaming market both in the Nordics and around the world is tightening due to external economic conditions, the company also withdrew all of its operating and financial targets for 2025.
“The outlook for the markets in which we are operating has shifted considerably and at a very rapid pace, and the execution of cost savings programmes has not been mitigating the effects from these conditions to a sufficient extent,” Viaplay Group chair of the board Pernille Erenbjerg said. “The impact of the macroeconomic headwinds on the business require that we execute differently on our strategy … The overall strategic direction of the company is unchanged and Jorgen, together with the Board and his leadership team, will evaluate the need for structural, operational, and capital allocation enhancements to the delivery of the strategy.“
What those changes will mean for the service’s international expansion is yet to be determined, but Rapti does believe that the launch of the service in the United States has gone well. Though she spoke with The Streamable before the recent changes at the top of the company, the stateside launch appears to have exceeded her expectations and hopes are high for the future.
“It has gone very well; it has gone better than we expected,” she said. “We have seen a very good pickup .. Obviously I won’t share what is our cost in the market, but if one considers it, we don’t need that much to be very successful, to put it this way. So, we are on a good path.”
Viaplay
Viaplay is a video on demand service focused on Nordic storytelling with more than 1,500 hours of award-winning content. The content library includes “Trom,” “Furia,” and “Partisan.” The line-up also includes Viaplay’s provocative young adult drama “Threesome,” a broad range of compelling documentaries, and much more.