If you ever tried watching SVT Play in the US, then you know that when you try playing anything, “we have technical problems. Please try again in a moment.” appears. That’s because SVT Play is only available in Sweden.
In this guide, we’ll tell you why that is while also showing you how to watch SVT Play in the US.
It goes down to rights to the content.
Worldwide, if you want to show something on your platform, you don’t just pay for a license to show it, you pay for a license to show it in a specific country.
Want to show it worldwide? You have to pay extra, and well, it will only work if other companies around the world don’t already have exclusive rights to certain content in specific countries.
You might be thinking that since SVT Play is Swedish, that nobody would want to stream their content in the likes of the US, hence they wouldn’t sell any licenses to it, allowing that content to be available in the US through SVT Play.
However, it more so goes down to SVT Play paying for rights to a lot of content it shows from other countries.
That means that a lot of the content, SVT Play can’t show it because it only has the rights to show it in Sweden, and if it wanted to show it in the US, it would have to pay a lot more. After all, the US consists of 300 million people.
And with SVT Play targetting Swedish people, it does not make sense to pay extra for a huge portion of content that isn’t made by SVT.
Of course, in theory, SVT Play could show the content SVT Play makes exclusively, but that would vastly cut down on the listings of the platform in the US.
Instead, SVT Play in the US is just not a thing.
Well, not until you make a few simple tweaks.
To unblock SVT Play in the US, you are going to have to trick SVT Play into thinking that you are in the US.
And that’s whether you are in the US or simply venture out of Sweden by 5 kilometers.
This is where VPN services come in if you use the right one that supports SVT Play.
See, it’s not as simple as downloading a VPN and connecting to SVT Play.
Relating to the second reason, SVT Play, as a platform that can’t show a lot of content in the US due to the right issues, has to make efforts to prevent people from watching SVT Play in the US.
The result? SVT Play makes efforts to prevent VPN services from working, meaning most VPN services don’t work.
This is where PrivateVPN comes in (as a Swedish provider) that is able to unblock SVT Play in the US just like many other entertainment platforms by simply focusing on the quality of servers rather than quantity.
You can try it out by signing up for the 7-day trial for PrivateVPN, which doesn’t ask for a card, followed by downloading the app and connecting to the SVT Play server.
Is that it then? Yes. Unlike many other platforms, SVT Play does not make you download the app to watch, making it super easy to watch.
With that said, you might want to watch on a big screen, and that’s where it does get a little bit complicated.
The issue with unblocking SVT Play on a TV is that most TVs and entertainment devices, whether it be a PS4, XBOX, or the likes of Apple TV, Roku, or Chromecast, is that none of these support VPN services making it super hard to watch on a TV.
You do, however, still have a few options.
The last recommendation will make it possible to watch on the likes of Apple TV as it will turn your entire connection into a VPN. However, it does not make much sense as most routers aren’t powerful enough to handle VPN connections resulting in slow speeds.
This is why the best option for you is an Amazon Fire TV device. It supports VPN services right away. From there, simply open your web browser and stream SVT Play in the US.
Want to unblock other platforms too? PrivateVPN is able to unblock the most popular services out there. Ready to try it out with our 7-day trial with no need for a card?
Written by Michael Smolski.
Disclaimer: While PrivateVPN has been working with SVT Play for years, due to the nature of services having to make efforts to prevent VPN services from working, no VPN service can guarantee you non-stop working time at all given times.