Viaplay Boss Vows Company “Will Be Different” After Horrors Of 2023
28.03.2024 - 13:31
/ deadline.com
“Moving forward, our company will be different.”
That was the vow of Viaplay Group President and CEO Jørgen Madsen Lindemann to shareholders in the troubled European streamer’s latest annual report, which released this morning in Europe and showed huge 2023 losses despite revenue growth. Viaplay faced extinction last year after struggling to build subs in territories such as the U.S., the Baltics and the UK, and being hit badly by the tough global economy.
However, it has been restructuring under Madsen Lindemann, who was parachuted in midway through the year to set a new course achieved through staff cuts, asset sales and a heavy recap program that reduced shareholder value to almost nothing.
Today, he said the recovery was underway, albeit that the “complexity of exiting” its non-core international markets was holding up several commercial and led to higher than expected losses. “We are dedicated to building businesses in our core markets that are resilient, disciplined and high performing,” he added. “We have delivered all this before, and we aim to do so once again.”
Despite its challenges, Viaplay actually posted 2023 net sales up in the Nordics and across the group. Nordic revenues organically grew 7% to SEK15.6B ($1.5B), with international sales of SEK3B, meaning a 13.2% rise overall. This was the result of “rising ARPU levels, a much-improved content mix and increased content sales to third-party platforms,” according to Madsen Lindemann. Viaplay streaming revenues accounted for a majority of the growth, up 36.4% year-on-year to SEK9.9B.
The tough TV ad market saw advertising sales fall 8%, with AVOD digital growth failing to offset linear TV and radio falls. Advertising accounts for about 30% of Viaplay’s