TV4's biggest competitor, SVT1 had an 18.6% market share and the gap between both channels increased from 0.5% in 2006 to 2.4% in 2007. The third most watched single channel was SVT2 with 12.6%, followed by TV3 (9.4%) and Kanal 5 (8.2%).
In terms of viewing time per day, SVT continues to be the leader among broadcasting companies in Sweden with a 53.7% market share, followed by TV4 (42.3%), MTG (26.1%) and Prosieben. But again, commercial channels are bridging the gap and getting stronger on the market place. Between 2006 and 2007, the viewing time per capita increased by 2.4% for TV4 and by 3.6% for MTG but it dropped by 4.9% for the Swedish public broadcaster.
As a whole, Swedes have never watched as much television with an average viewing time per capita of 157 minutes per day in 2007 (143 minutes for the 12-59 years-old and 145 minutes for the 20-44 years-old). "Considering the lack of major television sports events such as the Football European or World Cup, these are fantastic figures," commented Peter Lindström, head of scheduling for TV4. This also confirms the fact that people have embraced the new TV supply and that the new TV viewers via the Internet have not harmed the market for traditional TV viewing, on the contrary. This is great for our focus on Webb TV and TV4 Anytime."
As part of its multi-channel offer strategy, TV4 plans to launch TV4 Science Fiction on February 29 in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. The commercial broadcaster also recently signed a three year deal with Scandinavian major Svensk Filmindustri (SF) which gave it free TV rights to a large number of new and older feature films on SF's catalogue. TV4 which replaced SVT as a co-investor in Arn-The Knight Templar will air the two feature films and 6 episodes TV series in 2008 and 2009.