In connection with the streaming company Viaplay presenting its quarterly report on Tuesday, CEO Jørgen Madsen Lindemann chose to send a boot to the users who share an account instead of paying for each.
We estimate that approximately one third of premium subscribers share the account details of their Viaplay subscriptions. This is not fair. – Jørgen Madsen Lindemann
Lindemann believes that account sharing is a major problem for the entire industry, and reports that Viaplay has already implemented changes in some markets to limit the number of live event streams that can be shown at the same time – a move that is said to have generated new customers. This summer, more initiatives will be taken to “get more people to pay for what they watch”.
Other changes mentioned are that Viaplay will launch new subscriptions, in the form of a hybrid video on demand package, i.e. subscriptions that also contain advertising, and a news channel for sports. However, nothing is mentioned about whether a purely sports package will be offered at a lower price than the 699 kroner that new subscribers have to pay today for the combined film, series and sports package required to watch the Premier League and NHL.
It is a pressured Viaplay which is now going the same way as, among others, Netflix did in the past to prevent account sharing. The report, which showed an operating loss of SEK 473 million for the first quarter, caused Viaplay’s share price to fall on Tuesday, and the downward journey continued on Wednesday to an “all-time low”, writes Dagens industri.
