BBC Studios advances with plans for Nordic launch

BBC Studios’ forthcoming launch of two services for the Nordic market is attracting significant interest, according to Kasia Jablonska, head of VOD, EMEA at BBC Studios.

BBC Studios will launch its latest international services, BBC Nordic and on-demand sister service BBC Nordic+ in five Nordic markets with content from BBC Studios featuring the likes of The Great British Bake Off on April 17.

Kasia Jablonska

Speaking at the Connected TV world Summit in London, Jablonska said the launch would help consumers in the Nordic market discover new content via non-linear channels.

She said that there will be a major marketing promotion in association with affiliate partners.

Jablonska told DTVE that there had been considerable interest in the market for the new offering and that BBC Studios had “pretty much signed up the whole market” for distribution partnerships.

The enhanced linear channel and dedicated on-demand service will be available to Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish and Icelandic viewers

In the wake of recent announcements, the use of AI emerged as a significant sidebar theme at the Connected TV Summit, prompting questions about its use across multiple panel sessions.

Jablonska said data was becoming more important and the BBC was building its own data facility to learn more about audiences.

She said that metadata is very important for content discovery and to know who was watching what type of content.

“We are very early in this journey,” she said. Some partners are using AI and BBC Studios would probably use it to create enhanced metadata initially.