Streaming TV (STV) has become too important to sit at the edge of a Nordic media plan. Audiences have moved into TV-like digital environments, and ad-supported subscriptions are now adding real commercial weight to that shift. The next stage will depend on whether the market can give premium streaming the biddability, signals, and proof it needs.

Biddability on the big screen is the first layer of infrastructure

Mediavision says ad-supported plans account for 80% of new paid streaming subscriptions in the Nordics, while the market now exceeds 27 million paid subscriptions. What’s more, it’s added around 3.5 million paid subscriptions since spring 2025 alone, and Netflix’s planned ad-tier launch across Scandinavia in 2027 should bring even more advertiser attention to the space.

In our conversations with both publishers and buyers, that growth is clearly changing how they think about the channel. STV now looks much less like an extension of online video, because the viewing experience is closer to linear television than a webpage. 

But feeling like TV and being valued like TV are two different things. A lot of online video budget still flows to the walled gardens, where video is bought cheaply and at scale, so broadcaster-led streaming has to make the case for why its premium environment deserves a higher valuation, rather than being priced like any other video slot.

What’s more, a live sports match, a new drama episode, and a long-tail on-demand stream can all appear as video opportunities, but they don’t carry the same value for every advertiser. In practice, the buyers we talk to will pay more when the environment is brand-safe, relevant, and clearly understood. That clarity becomes even more important when STV campaigns are expected to support both brand outcomes and performance expectations.

That’s why biddability is such a practical priority. Agencies want frequency control, cleaner audience activation, clearer reporting, and the ability to optimise across channels. Meanwhile, publishers want to open up premium inventory without turning every impression into a generic video slot, because a large-screen, high-attention environment needs to be priced with more care.

Curation can help close that gap. From what we're seeing, buyers need easier ways to access quality broadcaster inventory across markets, especially here in the Nordics where scale so often depends on working across borders. A more consistent operating model can make STV easier to transact, while still allowing publishers to protect the quality and context that make their inventory valuable.

Better signals are where STV starts to earn its keep

The good news is that the market isn’t starting from scratch. OpenRTB 2.6 was built to help programmatic handle TV-like environments more accurately, especially through pod bidding and stronger content signalling. It gives media owners a way to describe live status, channel, network, content context, and ad-break structure in a language that SSPs, DSPs, and buyers can understand.

This capability can change the value of an impression very quickly. If the buyer only sees an app bundle, the opportunity may look too vague or hard to judge. But if you add programme context, genre, live status, and break position, then the same impression becomes easier to assess for suitability and yield.

Ad pod bidding is especially important because STV has to inherit some of television’s trading logic. A media owner should be able to signal whether an ad is first in break, last in break, or somewhere in the middle. Early implementations back this up: one podding rollout on Index Exchange reported peak win-rate increases of up to 25%, while more efficient request handling has reduced DSP QPS by over 70%.

Live viewing adds another layer of pressure. A normal evening curve is one thing, but as anyone who's handled a big match night knows, a major sports moment can create a sudden rush of concurrent ad requests. When a live event triggers an unpredictable break, the market needs demand, creative approval, and decisioning infrastructure ready at the same time, or valuable attention can be left unsold.

This is where we're focusing at Netric, because sell-side decisioning brings the decision closer to the signals that show the value of the opportunity. Instead of pushing every possible request further downstream, it allows more of the useful work to happen earlier, while the signal is still fresh and the impression can be understood in context. For publishers, that creates a stronger foundation for audience discovery and activation, because the strategy is built around their own inventory rather than treated as another generic stop in the bidstream.

Proof will decide how fast budgets move

Better infrastructure opens the door, but it's the proof of performance that gets budgets to walk through it. Measured.com's work across 274 incrementality experiments and 60 brands found STV made up just 3.5% of budgets on average, while delivering a median incremental ROAS of $2.88, a sign that standard platform reporting can miss real value when lower-funnel channels claim credit later.

The catch is that platforms tend to measure it inconsistently. STV underreports impact by almost 20% on average, which is why incrementality needs to sit closer to planning. Buyers need that consistency too: if one system counts an impression as STV and another as ordinary video, budget owners hesitate to move spend.

Some advertisers are still cautious, and that's fair. Premium streaming can't grow on attention alone if the commercial case doesn't travel cleanly from planning to reporting. And that’s why we’re so focused on delivering the infrastructure that lets buyers move budget with confidence.

The Nordic STV market has moved beyond the easy part of the story. Viewing growth is real, ad-supported models are expanding, and premium publishers have a stronger route into programmatic demand. The next phase will be won through better signals, cleaner supply paths, stronger measurement, and closer collaboration between buyers and sellers.