NRK, DR and RUV had excellent start of 2017 on New Year’s day with their respective local flagship series.

The drama thriller Valkyrien gathered 885,000 viewers on Sunday January 1st on NRK 1 for a share of 47.8% and episode 2 had 813,000 viewers for a 49% share. Online, each episode added 44,000 and 32,000 respectively according to nrk.no. In comparison, at the same period in 2016, NRK’s Mammon season 2’s opening episode had 692,000 viewers. The record breaker remains the WW2 drama The Heavy Water War that totalled 1,259,000 viewers for its premiere in 2015.

Valkyrien received overall positive reviews with five stars in the newspaper Dagbladet and four stars in VG and Aftenposten. NRK P3 Filmpolitiet gave it a number 5 ranking in its Top 10 list of hottest TV dramas to watch out for in 2017. Erik Richter Strand is director and head-writer of the eight-part high concept thriller starring Sven Norlin and Pal Sverre Hagen. (watch out for our interview on Friday). Tordenfilm produced the series with support from Nordisk Film & TV Fond.

Valkyrien premiered on Sweden’s TV4 on Sunday January 8 on its 22.00 slot. APC handles world distribution. Trailer: CLICK HERE. 

The Legacy (Arvingerne) Season 3 kick started DR’s drama season with 1,242,000 viewers for a share of 51%. Online viewers were estimated at more than 100,000 for the first week. This good start was all the more remarkable because Denmark suffered from a TV signal breakdown on New Year’s Eve which was not totally repaired on January 1st. “Even with this incident, we did extremely well, commented DR’s Head of Drama Piv Bernth to nordicfilmandtvnews.com. “It’s been two years since The Legacy last went on air, so we wondered if that would have any influence, but the answer is ‘only positive influence’ because the audience has been looking forward to seeing the characters again."

"The flow figures are a little lower than the previous seasons [Season 2 was the most watched TV programme in Denmark with over 1.5m viewers in 2015] but when you put all the figures together they are almost the same. Less flow, more online - that’s the change of watching TV today.”

In season 3 of The Legacy, Trine Dyrholm directs two episodes on top of her performance as Gro, one of the four heirs.  Other directors include Heidi Maria Faisst, May el Toukhy and Pernilla August who also has a minor role. Maya Ilsøe is creator-head-writer. The DR Fiction series is sold worldwide by DR Sales.

The Icelandic series Prisoners (Fangar) had a rocket start on RUV on New Year’s day with 100,000 viewers (out of 320,000 Icelanders). Total ratings for the first of 6 episodes was 40% with a share of 82%. “It goes without saying that we are over the moon about this reception and can’t wait to see how the other episodes will do”, said RUV’s programming director Skarphedinn Guðmundsson. “The ratings for the linear premiere was 2/3 of the total ratings. We are expecting these numbers to increase even further due to catch up. These ratings are quite similar to those for recent Icelandic TV dramas that almost always are above 40% and finish close to or over 50% including non-linear catch up.”

The family drama Prisoners was produced by Mystery Productions in cooperation with RUV and Vesturport, with support from Nordisk Film & TV Fond. World sales are handled by Global Screen. The series was directed and co-written by Ragnar Bragason.

Read the interview here with Bragason and co-writer/actress Nina Dogg Filippusdóttir: CLICK HERE. Trailer: CLICK HERE.