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The media landscape in Finland

The Finns are passionate newspaper readers: For every 1,000 inhabitants 524 copies are sold each day. This puts Finland second only to Norway in terms of newspaper reading. Finland also has a broad range of daily newspapers by international standards. However the Finnish media landscape is also characterised by high concentration, with two media companies, Sanoma and Alma media, controlling more than half of the total daily newspaper circulation. Both companies are also active in the television, radio, Internet and book market sectors.

Foto: V31S70, Lizenz: Creative Commons by-nc/2.0

Helsingin Sanomat, owned by the Sanoma group, has by far the highest circulation and is also the most influential among the dailies. It appears in the region surrounding the capital, where roughly a quarter of Finland's 5.3 million inhabitants live. The paper's predominance gives frequent rise to criticism. Although the newspaper cannot be ascribed to a particular party its position carries considerable weight in many political debates and developments. Yet it is not afraid to swim against the tide of opinion. For example it supports Finland's accession to Nato and greater use of nuclear power. In doing so it is currently distancing itself from the majority of the population, but enjoys the support of most members of parliament in the nuclear debate.

Finland has had television since the mid-1950s, and today it is broadcast exclusively with digital technology. From the outset there was a mixture of public and commercial broadcasting, even if the commercially financed programmes of MTV were initially only shown on an hourly basis by the channels of the public broadcasting company YLE. It wasn't until 1993 that MTV was allocated its own channel.

The Internet also poses a challenge to Finnish newspapers, and is making its mark particularly in the advertising business. By maintaining a strong online presence and making full use of synergies the publishers are trying to compensate for the drop in their income from the print media business and strengthen the bond between readers and their newspapers.

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