Telia in talks to buy Bonnier Broadcasting

Sweden-headquartered telco Telia has confirmed reports that it is in talks to buy Bonnier’s broadcasting business.

TV4 Play

In a statement Telia flagged its interest in the content space. A successful bid for Bonnier Broadcasting – a major TV player in the Nordic region –would put it in charge of brands including TV4, C More and Finnish MTV.

“As Telia Company has previously stated, content is an important part of the company’s future strategy and we continuously investigate possibilities in this and other areas,” the company said. “The discussions with Bonnier are to be seen in that context.”

News of the talks were first reported by Swedish magazine Resume, which claimed that a deal could be worth SEK 10 billion – SEK 12 billion (€967 million – €1.16 billion) and be announced as early as next month.

Telia is headquartered in Stockholm and offers fixed and mobile phone, broadband and TV services in markets including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Lithuania and Sweden.

In its first quarter earnings report the company said that it grew its TV subscription base by 10,000 customers and had launched a new over-the-top offering targeted at Telia customers that don’t currently have Telia’s TV service. This cross-platform offering includes 15 channels, live TV and a movies-on-demand offering.

In December Telia also partnered with Swedish-based streaming platform Solidtango with the aim of bringing “a new type of local and user-generated sports content” to Telia TV customers in the Nordics and Baltics.

Bonnier Broadcasting is the parent company of TV4, which alongside its flagship TV4 channel owns a number of Nordic channels in the free-TV and basic cable segments, as well as websites and on-demand services like TV4 Play.

Bonnier Broadcasting’s C More service is one of the leading OTT offerings in the Nordics, with a range of content including films, series, sports, kids content and live-TV channels. In 2017 C More also began offering original series.