Spotify to launch on TV in Scandinavia

Online music service Spotify is to launch on TVs across Sweden and Finland after striking a deal with Scandinavian pay TV operator TeliaSonera.

This deal marks a major step in Spotify’s strategy to move into the living room and comes a few months after Spotify founder and chief executive Daniel Ek told TBIvision that it was considering the launch of an ad supported online video service to rival the likes of Hulu and SeeSaw.

The deal with TeliaSonera will allow around 120,000 subscribers in Sweden and Finland the chance to listen to the music streaming service via their television sets, with plans to roll out in other countries throughout 2010.

“Bringing Spotify into the living room is a natural step to make our music service available to people wherever they happen to be,” said Ek.

Spotify, which allows users to listen to music for free with occasional adverts, currently has around 7 million subscribers around the world. Ek told TBIvision that it was considering launching a similar video service. “The technology is the same and we are interested in the space,” he said in March.