With 2.53 million viewers last Sunday,TV4's launch of Solsidan's second season had the best ratings for a Swedish comedy in the 2000s.
The last Swedish comedy that had the best viewing figure was SVT's Playa del sol (2,362 million on January 21, 2007). "These are historic numbers for both TV4 and the comedy genre," said Åsa Sjöberg, TV4 head of programming. "This amazing reception from viewers also strengthen our vision for Sunday and humour programing and we intend to continue investing in Swedish humour and comedy," she asserted. After the first successful season of Solsidan (launched on TV4 with 1.84 million viewers in January 2010), TV4 moved the10 part series from its Friday to Sunday evening slot.
The second season of the comedy series is co-written and directed by Felix Herngren and Johan Rheborg who also play the lead characters, with actresses Mia Skäringer and Josephine Bornebusch. The series was produced by Jarowskij and FLX and adaptation rights were bought by ABC in the US.
Last year, TV4 (part of Bonnier-owned TV4 Group) was the second most popular Swedish channel with a 19.2% market share, after SVT1 (23.2%). The broad family channel had the biggest slice of the market among the 12-59 age group (18.7%), above SVT1 (17.1%), TV3 (10.2%) and Kanal 5 (9.4%).
Since Wednesday, the 15-39 year old Swedes can also view maintream entertainment and series on TV11, the new version of TV400 and the group's first non-TV4 branded network.