MUMBAI: HBO Nordic, the newly formed joint venture of HBO and Parsifal International, will launch its linear and on-demand premium pay TV service mid-October in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland.

This is a web-only service and does not require the customer to be signed up with a pay TV service such as cable or satellite. Its competition will be with Netflix which is also expected to launch in the region.

As the first HBO-branded service in the region, HBO Nordic will offer a premium ad-free channel. HBO will offer both subscription and transactional video-on-demand services, providing premium content directly to consumers via HBO Nordic‘s untethered, "over-the-top" platform, hbonordic.com, and also via local distribution partners.

HBO Nordic CEO Herv?© Payan said, "We saw a rapid change in Nordic TV consumption these past years. Our target group is younger and more urban than the existing premium pay TV subscribers and they consume TV on multiple screens, particularly on computers, smartphones and tablets. Most of them associate HBO with best in class series. We view this as a unique opportunity for HBO to grow digital pay-TV subscriptions in the region".

HBO Nordic will offer subscribers all seasons and behind- the-scene materials of hit series, including ‘Boardwalk Empire‘, ‘The Newsroom‘, ‘Game of Thrones‘ and ‘True Blood‘. The HBO Nordic offering will also include feature films from major Hollywood and international studios, local distributors and independents.

Herv?© Payan said, "HBO Nordic is the first service in the Nordic countries to combine day-and-date delivery and streaming of the latest episodes of an HBO original series subtitled in the local language, with all past seasons. This service will be available on any internet connected device".