MTG’s Nordic businesses continued to deliver in the third quarter as its Scandianavian media interests delivered higher audience shares in each market for the first time in two years.
On demand service Viaplay continues to take the lead in growing subscriber bases against ongoing falls in the satellite base.
Viaplay has now introduced price increases for new subscribers from 1 October, and will also benefit from the price increases introduced in September 2014 that now are being felt by existing subscribers.
There’s also been positive growth in the CEE and 42% organic growth in group-wide digital revenues.
Sales of SEK 3,819 million were up from SEK 3,669 million in the third quarter of 2014; operating income was also up at SEK 240 million from SEK 221 million.
The Bulgarian business saw sales grow by 33% on the back of substantial linear and online viewing.
The Lithuanian and Estonian TV advertising markets are estimated to have grown, while the Latvian market is estimated to have declined. Czech revenues were down 2% in a flat advertising market. Prima recently announced a launch of a fifth channel, PrimaMAX, slated to make its debut before the end of the year.
The new movie channel will also be complemented by a new comedy channel, Prima Comedy Central, to be launched in partnership with Viacom.
The Baltic satellite subscriber base was stable while the Ukrainian satellite subscriber base continued to be impacted by the current political unrest.