Julian Clover speaks to Casper Bjorner on Disney Channel’s Nordic operations.
Given that Donald Duck is such an integral part of Christmas celebrations in Sweden it should come as little surprise that Disney Channel has so successfully integrated itself in the Nordic region. Such is the Duck’s popularity he is a more familiar figure than Mickey himself.
Disney Channel, Playhouse Disney and Toon Disney are all available in the Nordic region across cable, satellite and significantly DTT. The same video feed goes into each of the countries with dubbing and subtitling as appropriate.
Casper Bjorner, vice president and general manager, Disney Channels Scandinavia and Emerging Markets explains that a programme such as the hit High School Musical would offer both dubbing and subtitling in order to extend the age range at both ends of the scale. “Platforms like Viasat and Canal Digital are fairly sophisticated in set-top box technology, so most people will have the ability to switch between, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, even Finnish and English, though it’s not widely used.”
Having launched on Sweden’s DTT network Boxer, ensuring continued carriage for Donald, Disney Channel was then added to the Finnish DTT line-up through a relationship with Canal Digital and last Christmas went live on Norway’s Riks TV. With Boxer securing the pay-TV rights to Danish DTT, Bjoener is hoping to further extend the channel’s presence.
“When we launched on February 28, 2003 we were packaged in Viasat’s upper tiers, kind of old school like Disney was with Sky in the film packages, but that changed in ’05 when we repacked and went not exclusive in mini-pay or basic across all these platforms.” The approach is for the widest possible distribution, akin to the old analogue basic when it is available, and in line with Disney’s approach elsewhere in Europe.
Donald, and other talking animals aside, it is Hannah Montana and Zack & Cody that bring in the majority of viewers. “Those stories appeal to kids whether they’re from Birmingham or Stockholm. They connect in the same way,” says Bjorner. There are some local acquisitions and the possibility of a local version of “as the bell rings”, though the question in the Nordic region is which country should any local production be produced in.
Despite good broadband penetration, Nordic operators have had more of a wait and see approach when it comes to on demand. “In the last year they’ve started to look at on demand to help them differentiate from other operators and we’ve now launched with Telia’s IPTV service. It’s very early days, just a couple of months, but the content seems to be the most popular they have on the service.” Disney Channel Scandinavia’s website has one million unique users a month where both clips and a limited number of full-length programmes are available. “There’s a lot of on demand on TV3 and Kanal 5, in the grown up section of the business, but it is otherwise lacking.”
