Erichsen explains that the greatest challenge is for smaller distributors to keep up with the likes of Netflix, Facebook and Amazon who are grooming user behaviour and driving the consumer’s expectations.

Who owns the end user of TV services was top of the agenda for Erichsen, speaking during the Northern Waves TV technology conference in Oslo last week. 

He told IBC365: “We as smaller players need to continuously deliver stronger expectations.

”For us with our limited resources to keep up with that kind of development is going to be tough.”

Cooperation and collaboration
Canal Digital has a partnership with Google’s Android TV, which has proven to be beneficial from innovation and speed to market.

Erichsen said: “We could not have [succeeded] without them and that is very important for us.

“We would not bother to develop voice search ourselves,” however with Android TV it comes as part of the service.

On the changing relationship Facebook and Apple play in the streaming video-on-demand market, he adds: “We have some relationship there and are looking at how we can be part of that ecosystem in a friendly way and it’s looking exciting so far.”

Clarity in a crowded market 
The Norwegian and Scandinavian market is highly saturated. Erichsen explains that the subscriber base is at capacity with no new subscribers to attain.

He said the key to success is “about having the most compelling user experience and having the product that they want to go to,” he continued, “It is important from a broadcaster point of view to ensure revenue and us as distributors it is important to be able to deliver that and actually get the content rights, we need to have those.”

Top of Erichsen’s agenda for 2019 is to continue to serve the Scandinavian market and ensure the successful deployment of its Android TV service.

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