Newsletter September 25th: Streaming Services Dominate the Emmy´s

25 September 2019

The Emmy Awards mark the beginning of an eventful time period in the video content industry – this year is no exception. With the 71st installment wrapping up this past weekend, streaming services – yet again – displayed their strength. Perhaps most surprisingly, one online video service, usually defined within e-sports and gaming, received its first Emmy.

The 71st Emmy Awards celebrations kicked off last weekend with the Creative Arts Emmys, honoring outstanding artistic and technical achievements in TV productions. The main event was this Sunday; no doubt emphasizing the domination of the streaming giants’ as HBO, Amazon and Netflix topped the scoreboard.

HBO received 34 awards during the two events. The major titles discussed previously in our newsletter and press release lived up to the expectations: Game of Thrones was awarded 34 statuettes for the eighth and final season and Chernobyl won 10 awards, including Swedish born Johan Renck receiving the prestigious award for “Directing for a limited series or movie”. Comparatively, Netflix was awarded 27 statuettes in total – among others “Best TV Movie” for the interactive Black Mirror episode Bandersnatch.

Despite the large number of awards won by HBO and Netflix, the spotlight was stolen by another streaming service, namely Amazon Prime Video, and its success series Fleabag that won 6 awards. Writer, director and actress starring as the main character Phoebe Waller-Bridge accepted, amongst other, the award for “Outstanding comedy series” and “Lead Actress in a Comedy Series”. In addition to Fleabag, the second season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel contributed substantially to the grand total of 15 awards received by Amazon.

Another highly exciting win for Amazon was the “Outstanding innovation in interactive media” award won by its online video service Twitch, for the second season of Artificial. Similar to Netflix´s Bandersnatch, Artificial is an audience interactive science fiction series in which the live audience can affect the outcome of the episodes.

This is the first ever Emmy award received by Twitch, more commonly known as the market leader in e-sports and gaming, with daily viewing reaching 700’ Nordic individuals (+44% YOY). As the service will soon be integrated in Apple TV, viewing may well increase even further. Twitch has recently acquired the Swedish site IGDB (International Gaming Data Base), similar to the user created database for movies and series, IMDB. With the help of their users, IGDB has created a database providing information about games, genres, publishers, release dates etcetera. Currently, the database contains information on more than 119 500 video games.

Twitch´s market domination in e-sport and gaming viewing is one of the topics which will be discussed during Mediavision´s presentation on the Nordic E-sport Summit in Malmö, Friday the 4th of October. For more information please visit https://esport.confetti.events/.

Industry News

YouSee Signs Deal with Nordic Partners
Danish YouSee has entered a content partnership with Danish TV 2, C More and Nordisk Film. Starting from early 2020, YouSee’s customers will gain access to both international and local films and TV dramas.
 
The Prix Radio Awards has been held in Norway the past week. Norwegian morning talk show P3 Morgen finished on top by winning “Show of the Year” for the fourth time in a row, as their show will cease from airing this winter, one of several wins for NRK.
Big Brother makes its return to the Swedish tableau as Bonnier Broadcasting sets to produce a new season of the reality show. The production company Meter will produce the show airing in 2020.
Danish newspaper Dagbladet Information has recently launched an application named Information Miniature, which they describe as a briefer, cheaper version of the daily paper. The application will be priced at 79 DKK per month and is available from this week.
Google challenges Apple’s Apple Arcade by launching their own subscription- based service for mobile games named Google Play Pass. The service will feature more than 350 premium apps and be priced at $1.99 per month during the first year of subscription.
The FNL (Fashion News Lifestyle) Network has launched its own TV app, available on Roku and Amazon FireTV. The application is available free of charge worldwide as an ad-supported network and provide shows including Fashion News Live, City Showcase and Film Corner.
Netflix Overtaken in Poland 
In a recent study, Gemius/PI concluded that Vod.pl is now the most popular on demand streaming service in Poland, surpassing Netflix in terms of both users and reach.
In order to increase relevance, Swedish newspaper DN will from now on provide three different frontpages each day, focusing on Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö respectively. This change has been inspired by The Guardian´s similar concept.
 

Mediavision Press Release

Konkurrensen på svensk streamingmarknad tilltar. Nu står de båda giganterna Apple och Disney i begrepp att släppa helt nya tjänster i Sverige. Apple planerar en lansering redan den 1 november i år. 

Mediavision in the News

Den 1 november släpps den nya streamingtjänsten Apple TV Plus globalt. Tidigare i år presenterade den amerikanska teknikjätten Apple två nya plustjänster, magasinstjänsten Apple News Plus och strömningstjänsten Apple TV Plus.
Konkurrensen på den svenska streamingmarknaden hårdnar. Apple och Disney är på väg att släppa nya tjänster på den svenska marknaden. Apple kommer att släppa sin tjänst den 1 november.
Konkurrensen på den svenska streamingmarknaden hårdnar. Apple och Disney är på väg att släppa nya tjänster på den svenska marknaden.

Industry Events

  • Nordic E-Sport Summit: 4 October 2019, Malmö, Sweden *
  • MIPCOM: 14-17 October 2019, Cannes, France
  • Nordic TV Summit: 24 October 2019, Copenhagen, Denmark

*Events where Mediavision will be presenting