In 2017, the Icelandic advertising revenue decreased slightly after a virtually continuous growth in recent years. Newspapers are still the most important advertising medium, retaining nearly 40 per cent of the total advertising revenue.
In 2017, for the second year in a row, the value of the Finnish media market showed slight growth. TV, radio and other audio media grew, while newspapers and magazines declined. The strongest growth was in online advertising.
The Norwegian media industry now earns more on payments from viewers and readers than on advertising sales. This is reported in the Norwegian Media Authority's analyses of the media economy in Norway in 2017.
The Internet is about to become the main playing field for media companies. An analysis of the Swedish media companies’ economy in 2017 shows the competition between media companies and media branches in Sweden – and not least the competition between Swedish media and global online networks.
In 2017, Schibsted was again Norway’s largest media group after Danish Egmont, which took the top position in 2016. It is the Schibsted media houses – that is, the newspapers – that account for most of the group’s sales in Norway.
As the last Nordic country, Sweden now has nationwide commercial radio channels. The three companies that have been granted licences to broadcast throughout the country are Bauer Media, NRJ and NENT Group (MTG).
Public service activities on digital platforms should be clarified and public service companies become more important for local journalism in less covered areas, as proposed by the Swedish Public Service Committee in its final report.
In the Nordic countries, high-speed broadband subscriptions are becoming increasingly popular. There is also a continuous growth in mobile data traffic; however, as shown in a Nordic telecom report, there are differences between the countries.
Denmark, Sweden and Finland are the EU’s best-performing countries in digitization, according to the European Commission’s 2018 digital index. As a non-EU member Norway is not included in the ranking, but is at the same high level as its neighbouring Nordic countries.
Do you want to know more about media economics, newspapers, magazines, radio and television in Finland? Download Statistic Finland’s five new articles on the development of the Finnish media market.
