Consumers in Finland spend an average of €62 per month on media services — significantly less than their Nordic neighbours.File photo. Image: Jeppe Gustafsson / AOPYle News7:45After a booming period of ever-increasing media streaming subscribers during the Covid pandemic, the companies behind those services have been forced to rethink their strategies.Now, lower-priced ad-supported subscriptions have emerged as the industry's answer to lagging growth.The shift towards so-called hybrid subscriptions — cheaper packages that include advertising breaks — marks a big departure from the ad-free model that drove the sector's initial expansion."For a long time the market was driven by pure subscription revenue where consumers paid to avoid adverts. Now advertisements are being integrated again," said Fredrik Liljeqvist, a media analyst at Mediavision in Stockholm told Yle.He said that subscribers who opt for the ad breaks can substantially reduce their subscription costs.Fredrik Liljeqvist. Image: MediavisionCosts and strategies"If you watch movies and TV series, and choose a subscription without a sports package, it gets between 30 and 50 percent cheaper if you allow the adverts," he explained.Households in Finland have embraced the cheaper options more readily than their Nordic counterparts, replacing older, more expensive ad-free subscriptions with the new partially ad-funded alternatives.The market share of so-called hybrid subscriptions in Finland rose from 15 percent last year to 21 percent this year. Streaming giant Netflix is set to launch advertising subsidised versions in Denmark, Norway and Sweden during 2027, and according to Mediavision, it is only a matter of time before that happens in Finland as well.Alongside the introduction of hybrid subscriptions, streaming services have intensified efforts to prevent users from sharing accounts, using stricter controls on IP addresses and geolocation."It is easier to convert a user who is not paying, but who gets a subscription shared with them, than to find a completely new customer," Liljeqvist said.€62 per monthFinnish households spend an average of 62 euros per month on digital media — including video, text, audio and video games. That's significantly less than elsewhere in the Nordic region. In Sweden, the sum has grown rapidly in recent years and now the average stands at 87 euros.Price comparisons reveal stark differences for identical products across borders. Viaplay's ad-free monthly sports package costs approximately 65 euros in Sweden but just 46 euros in Finland, despite broadly similar content.Those price differences are deliberate, and reflect the streamers' assessments of what consumers across various markets will pay, according to Liljeqvist."It is about willingness to pay. That differs greatly between Finland and the rest of the Nordic region," he said.On average, consumers in Finland spend around half of their media euros on video services, around 20 percent on text-based content, 20 percent on audio and about 10 percent on video gaming.Finland's free-to-air traditionIn Finland, only about 50 percent of consumers' media spending goes towards TV and video content, compared with nearly 60 percent in Denmark, Norway and Sweden."Finland has historically had a very broad free offering in traditional TV. Not only public service, but also large commercial TV channels. Therefore Finns do not want to pay for large TV packages in the same way," Liljeqvist explained.File photo. Image: Henrietta Hassinen / YleHe noted that in other Nordic countries, viewers need a paid subscription to access the number of free channels that Finns take for granted.According to Mediavision, content from public broadcaster Yle accounts for 26 percent of total viewing time in Finland. At the same time, Sweden's public broadcaster SVT has 16 percent of the Swedish market.However, Liljeqvist noted that the smaller paid market in Finland was primarily due to traditional television's broad free content offerings, rather than solely Yle's market dominance.This article is based on this article by Svenska Yle, the public broadcaster's Swedish-language news unit.