Driven into a financial crisis, Viaplay aims for big savings and lays off a quarter of its employees.
To the crisis On Thursday, the run-down media company Viaplay published its earnings report for the second quarter of the year, and the figures are sad.
In the second quarter, Viaplay made a loss of a whopping 570 million euros. This amount includes write-downs and the costs of the redundancy program.
Viaplay’s operating loss in the second quarter was 23.7 million euros. The release shows that in the Nordic countries, about 14 percent of Viaplay’s subscribers disappeared in three months.
Viaplay’s total number of subscribers was still 7.6 million at the end of March, while now it is only 6.6 million.
Due to its dire financial situation, Viaplay said it would lay off no less than 25 percent of its staff and take other cost-saving measures.
“We have to make immediate decisions to guarantee our future business. Unfortunately, this means that we have to let go of more than 25 percent of our employees”, CEO of Viaplay Jorgen Madsen Lindemann said.
Viaplay says that in its new strategy it will focus on the Dutch and Nordic markets and reduce business in other countries, such as the Baltic countries, the United States and Canada.
Viaplay’s press release states that the company is even considering selling the entire group. Viaplay’s share has collapsed by almost 40 percent on Thursday.
Dagens Industri – magazine reported in June that Viaplay should pay no less than 3.3 billion euros in TV rights fees in different countries for different series over the next three years.
VIAPLAY is a familiar streaming service for Finnish sports fans. The Swedish group shows, among other things, the NHL league, the Premier League, the skiing world cup and formula one in Finland.
Viaplay raised the price of its all-encompassing Total package to 44.99 euros starting in March. The service no longer offers the Sport package separately, but sports fans must order the Total package.
At the beginning of this decade, Viaplay offered a separate Sport package that cost the consumer 29.99 euros per month.
The company has justified the price increases with, for example, increased production costs due to inflation and rising prices for sports broadcast rights.
In Viaplay’s recent strategy, raising prices even further is listed as one of the solutions.
Viaplay has been criticized on social media for its high prices.
Viaplay already issued a profit warning in June, after which the company’s CEO changed. Anders Jensen parted ways with Lindemann.
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