Spotify launches TV service

Online music service Spotify is to launch on TVs across Sweden and Finland after striking a deal with Scandinavian pay-TV operator TeliaSonera.

This deal marks a major step in Spotify’s strategy to move into the living room and comes a few months after Spotify founder and chief executive Daniel Ek told Informa Telecoms and Media that it was considering the launch of an ad supported online video service to rival the likes of Hulu and SeeSaw.

The deal with TeliaSonera will allow around 120,000 subscribers in Sweden and Finland – about half of the operator’s digital TV customers – the chance to listen to the music streaming service via their television sets, with plans to roll out in other countries throughout 2010. Telia will offer the ad-free Spotify Premium service, priced at SEK99 (€10.30).

The service will allow users to store multiple accounts via Telia’s digital TV set-tops. Telia struck a deal with Spotify in October last year to promote and participate in the further development of the service, and made the music service available via the iPhone and Android-based handsets.

“Bringing Spotify into the living room is a natural step to make our music service available to people wherever they happen to be,” said Ek.

Spotify, which allows users to listen to music for free with occasional adverts, currently has around seven million subscribers around the world. Ek told Informa Telecoms and Media that it was considering launching a similar video service. “The technology is the same and we are interested in the space,” he said in March.