| Weekly News Roundup |
| 1. The Swedish Film Institute wants to tax streaming giants such as Netflix – Dagens Media A tax on streaming giants, such as Netflix, could contribute to Swedish film production. That’s the view of Anna Croneman, who took over as CEO of the Swedish Film Institute (Svenska filminstitutet) in mid-April 2024. “In a public broadcasting interview (25/5-24), she expressed that Sweden should consider a tax similar to the cultural fee existing in just under twenty European countries, where streaming companies pay a portion of their revenue.” Read more 2. Max is now live in the Nordics – Mediavision Last week, Warner Bros. Discovery’s new streaming service Max launched in the Nordics. The service combines content from Discovery+ and HBO Max, replacing HBO Max which is no longer available in the Nordics. The company’s plan is to work towards one streaming service, Max, but for now, Discovery+ is still available. “Given that the complete content libraries of Discovery+ and HBO Max would merge into Max, the new service would hold almost 29 500 hours of runtime in each Nordic country. The new service thereby has the potential to become the biggest SVOD service in terms of library content in the Nordics.” Read more 3. “Spotify for background music” grows quickly – Breakit Soundtrack Your Brand, a Swedish SaaS company offering music via a subscription service to stores, hotels and restaurants, has doubled their revenue in two years after a change in strategy. “Revenue has increased from 133 million to 285 million SEK between 2021 and 2023, while the operating loss has shrunk from 87 million to 27.2 million SEK. Annual recurring revenue (ARR) is currently 330 million SEK.” Read more 4. Amazon plans to give Alexa an AI overhaul — and a monthly subscription price – CNBC Amazon is planning to unveil a souped-up version of its decade-old voice assistant this year and will charge a monthly fee, sources say. It comes as OpenAI unveiled a chatbot that can have two-way conversations, while Alexa is still widely used for kitchen timers and announcing the weather. “While Amazon wowed consumers with Alexa’s voice-driven tasks in 2014, its capabilities could seem old-fashioned amid recent leaps in artificial intelligence. Last week, OpenAI announced GPT-4o, with the capability for two-way conversations that can go significantly deeper than Alexa.” Read more 5. Private equity company buys Swedish SaaS platform for gyms – Breakit Nordic Capital, one of Sweden’s largest private equity companies, has bought BRP Systems, a SaaS company offering digital tools suited for training facilities. BRP Systems has 2 500 customers and has increased their revenues fivefold in seven years, to 180 MSEK. “The investment is made together with the company’s management to further accelerate BRP Systems’ ambitious growth journey, including international expansion and value-creating additional acquisitions […].” Read more 6. Sony Music Publishing mulls ‘all options’ against Spotify over bundling subscriptions – Music Business Worldwide Sony Music Publishing is considering action against Spotify over a recent change that limits royalty payments to songwriters and publishers in the US. The dispute centers around Spotify’s decision to reclassify its Premium subscription tier as a bundle, allowing the company to pay a lower mechanical royalty rate to publishers and songwriters than standalone music subscription services. “According to a 2022 legal settlement known as Phonorecords IV, music publishers and streaming services agreed that bundled services in the US are allowed to pay a lower mechanical royalty rate to publishers and songwriters compared to standalone music subscription services. However, music companies and organizations representing songwriters argue that Spotify’s recent move underpays royalties to songwriters and publishers.” Read more Weekly Analysis Roundup 1. How companies make it hard for you to cancel online subscriptions – RTE It’s all down to dark patterns, or design tricks used online to convince you to do things you may not have originally planned, according to RTE. “[…] dark patterns have an ability to technically comply with regulations such as GDPR while still making it cumbersome to decline cookies or cancel a subscription which makes it difficult to regulate. Germany is one of the few countries that have started to expand regulation of dark patterns online.” Read more 2. Zuora’s CEO looks beyond the subscription economy – Diginomica Having pioneered the notion of the Subscription Economy, Zuora CEO Tien Tzuo has a new concept front of mind: Total Monetization. And to help deliver on that, Zuora is acquiring Togai, a provider of metering and rating solutions. “But now in the Subscription Economy, this new world is a new normal. People are asking what’s next? Well, we believe what’s next is a concept that we call Total Monetization. [..] Total Monetization is about mixing multiple business models in a way that maximizes the value of your innovations in your target market.” Read more 3. Starling Bank’s SaaS business can become bigger than the bank itself, says its boss – Tech.eu Starling Bank’s SaaS business – Engine, a suite of technologies that Starling was built on and which the challenger bank now sells to financial institutions around the world – could one day become bigger than the bank itself, says Sam Everington, the CEO. “Clearly Starling the bank at the moment is the biggest part of the group by a long way. But it is a UK regulated bank and it is constrained to a single country ultimately, whereas Engine can serve banks in a whole number of markets in a very different way.” Read more Image source |
