Norwegian media company Schibsted recently took its money and ran from the big Scandinavian TV stations. Its leaders said they hadn’t lost faith in moving pictures, but they were no longer interested in TV as we know it. Schibsted has been successful in jumping on bandwagons early. It’s probably worth noticing which ones it’s jumping off, as well.
Schibsted is a media giant in Norway and a major player in Scandinavia. The company owns Norway’s biggest paper, Verdens Gang, and the biggest Web site, VG Nett. Its paper Aftonbladet is a huge success in Sweden, as is its site aftonbladet.se. Lately, Schibsted has enjoyed some good press, with Editors Weblog calling VG Nett a “magic success” and the International Herald Tribune claiming that VG Nett has found “the secret to profiting online.”
Up until November 2006, Schibsted was a large shareholder in Norwegian commercial channel TV 2 and Swedish ditto TV 4. Then it withdrew from TV.
Commenting on Q4 figures last week, Schibsted CEO Kjell Aamot said: “TV has peaked. Last autumn, as we went out of the business, I was worried. We were almost sure that TV had peaked. Today we are absolutely sure.” The reason for this peak, claimed Aamot, is that TV will meet increasing competition from online video.
Interesting, then, to see today’s move from VG Nett. They just announcedSnutter.no — new video upload service will compete with YouTube. (It’s not launched yet, so the URL doesn’t work yet.) VG Nett’s Jo Christian Oterhals told the trade magazine Journalisten(in Norwegian): “Snutter.no will feel more like home to Norwegians than YouTube does.”
VG Nett is already enjoying massive traffic at its VGTV service, a site that offers videos made by reporters.
Snutter.no may prove equally successful. The concept of uploading video is catching on, as demonstrated by YouTube. Therefore, it will be easy to explain Snutter.no to someone: “It’s like YouTube, but in Norwegian.”
…Of course, there must be that “someone” to explain Snutter.no to. VG Nett already enjoys a huge audience. This stands in stark contrast to similar Norwegian services launched so far; they haven’t gained popularity and are virtually unknown. (If you’re interested, I’m referring to NorwayLive.no and Bubblare.no — neither of which are anything near household names.)
