Media Companies and Business Activities 2009
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N O R D I C M E D I A T R E N D S 1 1 The Nordic Media Market Denmark · Finland · Iceland · Norway · Sweden Media Companies and Business Activities 2009 Compiled by Eva Harrie N O R D I C O M 2 0 0 9 Nordic Media Trends 11 The Nordic Media Market 2009. Media companies and Business Activities Second edition (pdf only) COMPILED BY: Eva HARRIE COUNTRY CONTRIBUTIONS: Tuomo SAURI (Statistics Finland), Ragnar KARLSSON (Statistics Iceland), Nina BJØRNSTAD and Liv Mari BAKKE (medianorway), Ulrika FACHT and Staffan SUNDIN (Nordicom-Sweden), The Media Secretariat (Denmark) © Nordicom, University of Gothenburg ISSN 1401-0410 PUBLISHED IN 2009 BY: NORDICOM University of Gothenburg P O Box 713 SE 405 30 GÖTEBORG Sweden www.nordicom.gu.se EDITOR NORDIC MEDIA TRENDS: Ulla CARLSSON COVER BY: Roger PALMQVIst Contents Introduction 5 The Nordicom Network, Nordic Media Trends 6 Staffan Sundin Media Ownership in the Nordic Countries. Current Trends 7 Statistics 1. The Nordic Media Market 15 2. The Media Newspapers 35 Magazines 57 Radio 69 Television 87 Internet 111 3. The International Media Market 121 4. Demographic & Economic Data 125 Media Market Analyses A Presentation of the Authors 130 The Newspaper Market 132 The Magazine Market 146 The Radio Market 159 The Television Market 171 References 191 Introduction Eva Harrie The Nordic Media Market 2009 is the eleventh publica- assumed strong positions on the web. Fusions and tion in the Nordic Media Trends series, which docu- acquisitions are another strategy for retaining market ments and describes developments in the media sector. dominance. Of the companies listed in 1998, Jyllands- The last publication in the series treated the media Posten and Politiken are now JP/Politikens Hus, and landscapes in the Faroes and Greenland; otherwise, Bonnier has acquired total ownership of TV4 for ex- the series focuses mainly on the five Nordic countries: ample. The foreign presence has also changed. In 1998, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The Wolters Kluwer (The Netherlands) and SBS Broad- series is a twine of two threads: The one offers general casting (then domiciled in Luxembourg) operated on media statistics and a broad overview of developments the Nordic market, at the bottom of the list. Wolters in the media sector. The Nordic Media Market, which Kluwer subsequently left the Nordic market, whereas you have before you, represents the other thread, with SBS Broadcasting established an increasingly strong a focus on the major media companies in the Nordic position in Nordic radio and television before being arena and on ownership in both regional and national incorporated into ProSiebenSat1 (Germany) in 2007. perspectives. Meanwhile, the British Mecom Group entered onto the This publication is published in electronic form market in 2006, thereby becoming the first non-Nordic only. A first edition, including media statistics, was newspaper company in the region. published in December 2008. This second edition In order to give a broader picture of the media land- (June 2009) also presents complementary analysis of scape the companies are operating in, the company data the media market. The volume offers information and are accompanied by statistics for newspapers, maga- analysis on the largest media companies operating on zines, radio, tv and internet, with respect to structure, the Nordic region, where they are active, and in what penetration/reach and consumption: what media are branches of the media sector. So far, The Nordic Media on the market, who owns them, how many people have Market has been published three times, in 2000, 2003 access to the respective media, which titles and chan- and now in 2008/2009. Some things remain constant nels have most readers/listeners/viewers, and which throughout the series to date. The same five media companies are largest in the respective branches. Since companies that topped the list in 1998 are still the five an understanding of the Nordic media market requires largest players on the market in 2007; the Nordic pub- a broader framework, data on the largest European and lic service companies are still among the twenty largest international corporations are also included. media companies; and as to domicile, the ‘top twenty’ The information and data presented here were col- continue to be evenly distributed among the countries, lected and collated in a joint effort by Statistics Finland, with 4-5 companies in each. Many of the companies Statistics Iceland, medianorway and Nordicom-Swe- have increased their volume substantially – some more den. All the teams produce national statistics on the me- than doubling their volume – over the past decade. dia, and all are highly knowledgeable concerning media At the same time, some major changes have occurred trends and existing documentation of those trends in as technological advances have given rise to new pat- their own countries. The Media Secretariat in Denmark terns of media use. Media companies have ‘gone dig- has provided invaluable help in the collection of Danish ital’, and several – with Schibsted in the lead – have data, plus checking data for this publication. 5 Nordic Media Trends The Nordicom Network The information in the Nordic Media Trends series is collected and collated in collaboration with the organizations and individuals below. Nordic Coordination Iceland Nordicom Statistics Iceland University of Gothenburg Hagstofa Íslands P O Box 713 Borgartúni 21A SE 405 30 Göteborg IS-150 Reykjavík www.nordicom.gu.se phone +354 528 1000 e-mail [email protected] Eva Harrie, Nordic coordinator www.statice.is/ phone +46 31 786 46 58 e-mail [email protected] Ragnar Karlsson phone +354 528 1051 e-mail [email protected] Denmark Norway The Media Secretariat medianorway Mediesekretariatet medienorge H.C. Andersens Boulevard 2 Department of Information Science and Media Studies DK 1553 København V University of Bergen www.mediesekretariatet.dk P O Box 7800 N-5020 Bergen phone +45 3373 3373 www.medienorge.uib.no Nina Bjørnstad phone +47 55 58 91 26 Liv Mari Bakke Finland phone +47 55 58 91 21 Statistics Finland e-mail [email protected] Media statistics P O Box 5 B FIN-00022 Statistics Finland Sweden Helsinki Nordicom-Sweden http://tilastokeskus.fi/til/jvie/index.html University of Gotheburg P O Box 713 Tuomo Sauri SE 405 30 Göteborg phone +358 9 1734 3449 www.nordicom.gu.se e-mail [email protected] Ulrika Facht phone +46 31 786 13 06 e-mail [email protected] 6 Media Ownership in the Nordic Countries. Current Trends Staffan Sundin These first years of the twenty-first century have wit- markets almost entirely; all but three of the twenty larg- nessed major changes in the Nordic media market. In est actors are European. The largest media corporation broadcasting, the conversion to digital technologies by far is Bertelsmann. With a total turnover of 14.3 has reduced costs in both production and distribution, billion euros, it is twice as large as its closest competitor, and freed resources to launch a number of new, and in Lagardère in France. Several of the companies are active most cases ‘niched’, television channels. Both use of in a good number of media; Bertelsmann encompasses and advertising on internet have increased sharply, and the entire spectrum with interests in newspapers, maga- traditional media have had to work hard to keep their zines, books, radio, television, film and music. Finnish audiences, readers and advertisers. At the corporate Sanoma and Swedish Bonnier are very strong on their level, several major fusions and acquisitions have taken home markets, and both are also active in most media. place. While at the Nordic level they have resulted in Other groups that have holdings in both print and a greater concentration of ownership, they have in sev- audiovisual media, but are not as widely represented as eral instances enhanced competition in the respective the above-mentioned are the two French companies, national markets. The trends we find in the Nordic Lagardère and Vivendi, the Spanish Grupo Prisa, and countries are by no means unique; media companies in Italian RCS. Despite tendencies toward horizontal in- both larger European countries and North America face tegration in the media sector in recent decades, many similar challenges. major European companies are still focused on either print or audiovisual media. Among the latter are the public service broadcasters and their privately owned Media conglomerates strong in the USA competitors in the larger European countries. The world’s largest media corporations have long been American media companies do not play any major under critical surveillance. After several of these media role in European media markets. Rupert Murdoch’s conglomerates had grown by leaps and bounds through News Corporation is the largest American operator in fusions and acquisitions in the 1990s, critics pointed Europe, with a turnover of 6.6 billion euros, prima- out that power over the media in the western world now rily in Great Britain, where the company is a principal lay in the hands of about ten corporate groups. In the player in the daily press. Disney, the second-largest, has succeeding decade, however, growth has subsided; sev- a turnover that is only slightly greater than Bonnier’s. eral of the groups have restructured, subsidiaries have Available data on Time Warner’s European receipts been sold off, old constellations have dissolved, and new give an incomplete picture, but on the three largest ones have formed. Still, the companies in question are markets the group’s receipts amounted to no more than extremely large, not least by Nordic comparison. The 2.5 billion euros in 2007. With the exception of News largest, Time Warner, noted a total turnover in 2007 Corporation and Bertelsmann, which has some minor that was eleven times that of the Bonnier group, largest holdings in Germany, the largest conglomerates are not in the Nordic media market.