OTT is growing in Norway but the TV screen is back, said Bjarne Myklebust, head of IP distribution NRK, at the Nordic Media Summit.
According to figures from NRK, 24% now use OTT services in Norway, up from 5% in Q2 2012, and Youtube is still used by more than 40%. In Norway, 34% of all households now have a Netflix subscription.
In terms of viewership, NRK has about the same weekly reach as Netflix in the OTT space. The Norwegian public broadcaster reports about 180 petabyte in traffic just for NRK in 2015.
Watching OTT services on the big screen is now back: in 2016 OTT viewing accounted for 36%, mobile 4%, PC 42% and tablets 17%. This compares with PC 66%, big screen TV 11%, mobile 4% and tablets 19% in 2014. The switch back to the traditional TV set is largely due to better devices with Apple TV leading the market in Norway.
Reaching a younger audience is a challenge for all public broadcasters, but Bjarne said that they are still watching traditional TV, 34% OTT and traditional TV 66%.
“The challenge is to get the 16 year olds back to NRK.”
In order to achieve this, NRK has created the Skam drama series. “This is drama they can relate to, played and written by their peers with social media helping to build story and characters.” Apart from the regular instalments, NRK has also created short form videos, five minutes per day, for mobile viewing.”
However, very young viewers (2-11 years old) prefer the tablet, with 64% watching, compared to PCs at 17%, the TV set at 5% and mobile 15%.
Interestingly, when NRK changed its UX for these young viewers with a dedicated UX – rather than using the generic NRK UX, the number of views doubled with exactly the same content. “The UX has to be tailored. First we used the generic player, but after we made a new UX for kids, the same content generated a much higher reach.”
