Nordic Television at the Turn of the Century

LEON BARKHO Nordic Television at the Turn of the Century An Overview of Broadcasters and Audiences JIBS Working Paper Series No. 2005-1 ISSN 1403-0454 NORDIC TELEVISION AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY: An Overview of Broadcasters and Audiences Leon Barkho Media Management and Transformation Centre Jönköping International Business School Jönköping International Business School P.O. Box 1026 SE-551 11 Jönköping, Sweden Phone: +46 36 15 77 00 www.jibs.se CONTENTS FOREWORD............................................................................................................................ v 1. The Nordic Region .............................................................................................................. 7 2. Researching Television Markets......................................................................................... 9 2.1 Typology........................................................................................................................... 9 2.2 Geographical Coverage................................................................................................. 10 2.3 Transmission ................................................................................................................. 13 2.4 Status.............................................................................................................................. 16 3. The Nordic Television Broadcasting Market................................................................... 18 4. Market Shares of Major National Channels.................................................................... 21 5. Equipment........................................................................................................................... 24 6. Television Viewing.............................................................................................................. 27 7. Digitalization....................................................................................................................... 30 8. Conclusions ......................................................................................................................... 33 References ............................................................................................................................... 34 iii iv FOREWORD This working paper explores the basic contexts and structures of television markets in the Nordic nations. It is part of several related projects being undertaken by research fellows and associates that are investigating television policy, market developments, and effects at the Media Management and Transformation Centre, Jönköping International Business School, Jönköping University, Sweden. This paper has been written by Leon Barkho, a research assistant at the centre, and was made possible through the financial support of the Carl-Olof and Jenz Hamrin Foundation to the Media Management and Transformation Centre. This report provides an overview of the types, number, and location of domestic and foreign television channels in the region, means of channel distribution including data on cable and satellite use, channel availability, revenues of broadcasters, audience shares, viewing data and other relevant information that will help readers understand the contemporary environment of Nordic television. Robert G. Picard Hamrin Professor of Media Economics Director, Media Management and Transformation Centre v vi 1. The Nordic Region The Nordic television involves that of 5 states: Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland. Geographically, the area stretches from Inari in Finland—one of the world’s most northern and geographically remote countries—to continental Europe, via Denmark’s 68- km-long boundary with Germany. Lying somewhere in between are Norway and Sweden, occupying the western and eastern halves of the Scandinavian Peninsula. Between the Greenland Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean is the island of Iceland. The area is 1,257,309 sq km, with Sweden being the largest of the five (449,964 sq km) and Denmark the smallest (43,094 sq km). It is slightly less than 2.5 times the size of California and slightly more than the size of Columbia in the United States. It is more than twice the size of Spain, more than three times the size of Germany, and about four times that of the United Kingdom. On this massive land live only 24,468,248 people, with 8,986,400 in Sweden, 279,384 in Iceland and the rest almost evenly distributed among the other three countries. The number of the inhabitants is two-thirds that of California—the most populous state in the U.S.—and less than one third of the population of the United Kingdom. The five countries are internationally known for their prosperity, enviable living standards and extensive welfare benefits. In their drive to sustain economic affluence, they continuously struggle to maintain and improve a competitive edge for their heavily export- oriented economies. As a result their GDP per capita is among the highest in the world. In 2003 and at purchasing power parity it averaged $28,200 with Norway ($37,700) ranking the third in the world after Luxembourg and the United States, Denmark the eighth, Finland the 22nd and Sweden the 25th (The World Factbook, 2004). Their 2003 GDP amounted to $725.95 billion, approximately one third of that of France or the United Kingdom, almost twice that of the Netherlands, and nearly double that of Spain. The countries communications systems are modern in all respects. They possess one of the most advanced telecommunications networks in the world and are home to some of the world’s finest telecommunications companies, including Ericsson and Nokia. But the countries have pursued different paths to economic superiority. While Denmark, Finland and Iceland have largely free market economies, Sweden and Norway feature a combination of free and mixed market activity. The countries have followed a cautious attitude towards European integration. Norway and Iceland are still outside the European Union and of the three Nordic EU members only Finland has opted to switch its national currency to the euro (€). Despite modern technological advances, particularly in transport and communication, they cannot be said to have fully integrated into the European mainstream. 7 The features bringing these countries together are more easily discernible than those that may separate them. The homogeneity is perhaps more apparent at cultural, linguistic and ethnic levels. Historically, each country was once either wholly or partially part of the other and three of them (Sweden, Norway and Denmark) share a common Viking legacy. However, the countries do not share the same correspondence when it comes to their audiovisual markets, notably television broadcasting. As we shall see, the television landscape in the five Nordic states is varied and lacks uniformity. Their response to new media regarding television is not compatible with living standards or economic prosperity. Perhaps this explains why foreign media giants whether in Europe or America have hitherto shunned the Nordic broadcasting markets which otherwise have been very attractive to other foreign economic activities. The Nordic region is rich in industries featuring high on the world rank order, but its audiovisual market, dominated by the public service sector, lacks companies with the same stature. No Nordic firm makes it into the world’s rank order of top 50 leading audiovisual firms (European Audiovisual Observatory Yearbook 2003, hereafter referred to as OBS). 8 2. Researching Television Markets 2.1 Typology The literature on television and related activities is voluminous. There are several bodies, both public and private, which provide statistics on various aspects of television: viewing, ownership, transmission, genres, etc (see for example, OBS, OECD, Carat Crystal, European Commission, EPRA, and Persky among others). But, strangely enough, “no accurate statistics on the supply of channels or programming in the European Union are available” (Picard, 2001) and that absence extends to the Nordic states. One reason for the lack of a reliable count regarding the number and type of television channels available in any particular country stems mainly from the fact that various countries have their own definitions of the television sector and a number of organizations use different counts and models of analysis. Of the audiovisual market, and “statistically speaking, the television sector is the most difficult to define,” (OBS, 1995). The absence of standard definitions has led to differences in the way various sources count the number of television channels and stations available. For example what is considered a local channel in one country might be regarded as a regional one in another. The advent of digital technology has multiplied the number of television channels available and has already forced the European Audiovisual Observatory, which provides one of the world’s largest and most reliable television-related statistics, to drop the publication of its annual and rather comprehensive lists of television channels by country in 2002. The counts provided here should not be viewed as thorough and void of any inaccuracies. Though mainly drawn from the OBS (1995-2003), they also rely on counts Persky (2004), Carat (2003) and Harrie (2003) provide. The increasingly competitive nature of the television systems in Europe, particularly with the advance of digital technology, makes it hard for one single body to present a comprehensive

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