TV4’s Berg named as C More COO, CEO departs

Mathias Berg

Swedish broadcasting group Bonnier Broadcasting, owner of free-to-air broadcaster TV4 and pay TV outfit C More, has named Mathias Berg as operational manager for both TV4 and C More.

Berg, who is currently COO of TV4, will add C More to his responsibilities, with the task of further coordinating and integrating the pair’s activities, particularly in the digital domain.

The rejig will see existing C More CEO role disappear. Manfred Aronsson, who previously held that position, has left the group.

As operations chief at TV4, Beg has helped build a base of 3.6 million registered users for on-demand service TV4 Play. He will now be tasked with8integrating TV4 Play and C More, clarifying the long-term strategy for the pay TV outfit.

Bonnier Broadcasting CEO Casten Almqvist praised Aronsson for helping turn round a business that had been in deep crisis and was considered for sale to a key building block in the company.

Separately, TV4 Group has signed an agreement with Norigin Media to use its Canvas Apps development services to build Smart TV Apps for a new advertising video-on-demand service.

The new AVoD service will use Norigin’s multiscreen TV-App modules that support ad-integrations on both video-on-demand (VOD) and Live-TV content. The modules are supported across different Smart TVs and will be initially used for the launch on Samsung Tizen. The application will be directly integrated towards TV4’s advanced OTT platform giving viewers free access to live and on-demand content.

Cecilia Engelbert, product owner for smart TV at Bonnier Broadcasting, said: ”We see an increased consumption on Smart TV platforms amongst our users. This is a natural next step to widen our AVOD service, and we are very pleased to work with Norigin Media in delivering a TV app to this new platform. We always strive to improve the experience in our streaming services and we strongly believe that this platform will be of great value to our users going forward.”