Exclusive: Viaplay retains “intense” originals schedule despite financial woes, reveals scripted boss

Ronja, The Robber’s Daughter

Viaplay Group has retained its scripted originals target, despite its recent financial woes, the Nordic firm’s SVP of scripted content, Camilla Rydbacken, has told TBI here at the Monte-Carlo TV Festival.

“Last year, we had slightly above 70 originals, and that is the goal for now as well, but I’m not sure exactly how many will be launched,” revealed Rydbacken. “We have so much content in the pipeline; I think we’re shooting at least like 15 or 20 shows this summer. So still an intense schedule.”

Viaplay’s seemingly rapid growth hit a speedbump earlier this month, with the unexpected resignation of former CEO Anders Jensen, who was replaced by Jorgen Madsen Lindemann, as shifting economic headwinds saw the Nordic operator impacted by the effects of the cost-of-living crisis and increased churn following price increases.

As a result, Rydbacken said that Viaplay was looking to produce more shows based around known properties while also scheduling a roughly even split of new and returning original titles. “It’s a different time now. We need to be more careful what we choose in times like this.

“I think a lot of companies and broadcasters chose to go for like, big IPs, safe content that will renew. We’re doing that, for example, with Ronja, The Robber’s Daughter and things like that – strong IPs that we can rely on,” shared Rydbacken, highlighting the series that was based upon the classic 1980s Swedish children’s fantasy novel.

Love Me

Passion projects

“We appointed a new CEO a couple of weeks ago and we are giving the new management team some time to just investigate and look into where we are going. But the content strategy, and the overall strategy, is the same,” the scripted exec told TBI.

“Our goal is to have something for everyone. We have the sports, we have acquired content, then we have original content. It’s important for us to, to pick up on different genres and different target groups.”

“But it’s not only safe IPs” said Rydbacken, who said that Viaplay has also been looking for content from “new creators that have passion projects” such as Jospehine Bornebusch’s drama series Love Me – “that was very successful for us,” she added.

“I wouldn’t say that we’re looking for that much comedy,” said Rydbacken, sharing further details of Viaplay’s scripted strategy. “We want our content to travel and comedy we see as more local.

“Crime, of course, travels very well, so we’re continuing to do that. Dramedy means lower budgets than crime and we can afford that being more local. So that we want to continue with in all our markets.”