TV4 Play Premium – A New Way to Charge for Web Content

TV4 Play Premium has arrived.  Using the pay service, viewers can see high-resolution, commercial-free TV on the net, watch popular series before anyone else and have access to TV4 Play's entire archives.

"This is the next step in our strategy to develop the TV4 Group's business on new platforms," says Cecilia Beck-Friis, director for TV4 Digital media. "Pay TV is a natural part of our business and in this fashion we're further developing future TV platforms now."

With the launch of TV4 Play Premium, the channel takes one step closer to customers.

"The biggest challenge for us is figuring out what drives consumer loyalty and purchase of the Premium service," says Tommy Jarnemark, manager for TV4 Play and On Demand. "Working with customer relations in this way is a new experience for us and it's exciting to see how we can build a future over time."

The service will cost 99 Swedish kronor per month or 495 kronor for six months. The precursor service TV4 Anytime is being discontinued with the launch of Premium. The question is: Are consumers reader to pay for TV on the net?

"That remains to be seen, but we know that people pay a lot of money today for TV via TV providers," says Jarnemark. "And we have already seen an increase in the number of subscriptions sold immediately after the launch compared with previous levels for TV4 Anytime. We believe in a 'freemium concept' - that is with an advertising model creating the right conditions for converting to pay service. To have the two brands in the same service seemed wrong."

During the next phase, the service will be further developed to work with the iPad and Android.

"The current iPhone app will be updated in an interesting way from a commercial and user perspective," says Jarnemark. "We've seen good growth both in reach and time spent on the new platforms and we are focusing a lot on them. Future TV will be platform-agnostic and the Play team is working hard to rise to that challenge."