The list of the largest Nordic media companies, in a broad sense and measured in turnover in 2022, is dominated by companies from the telecom industry. In a Nordic context, this means companies that offer everything from fixed and mobile telecommunication via the Internet to terrestrial and streamed television. In 2022, three of the top five media companies in the Nordics in terms of turnover were so-called telcos. The single largest company, with a turnover of 11,727 million euro in 2022, was the Swedish streaming service Spotify. It was the first time that Spotify was the largest company. The former largest company, the Norwegian telecom company Telenor, was now the second largest with a turnover of the equivalent of 9,793 million euro. Other companies in the top five were the Swedish telecom companies Telia Company and Tele 2, and the Danish media group Egmont Group.
The Nordic countries have chosen to organise their public service media systems in different ways, which affects the relative size of the largest public service companies. In Norway and Finland, public service media is run within the framework of a single company in each country, NRK and Yleisradio. Norwegian NRK is also the biggest of the Nordic public service companies in terms of turnover. Denmark, in turn, has two state-owned public service media companies. The larger of these two, DR, is financed through public funds. The other and smaller company, TV2, mainly runs on commercial income. Sweden, choosing another solution, has three public service media companies. Two of them, Sveriges Television and Sveriges Radio, are included on the list of the 25 largest media companies in the Nordic region. The three Swedish companies are owned by a foundation.
However, the majority of the 25 largest Nordic media companies in this compilation are privately owned. Eleven of the nineteen companies that are non–public service media are companies listed on a stock exchange in the Nordics or elsewhere, while eight are unlisted. Of the eight unlisted companies, five are owned by non-profit foundations. Foundations also serve as significant minority shareholders in a couple of the publicly traded companies on the top-25 list. Foundation ownership is another characteristic of the Nordic media system. At the same time, only one of the companies on this top-list can be characterised as a family-owned business: the Bonnier Group, which is owned by the Swedish Bonnier family.
In terms of which country the companies are headquartered in, the top-25 list reflects the relative size of the national Nordic markets rather well. Nine of the companies have their headquarters in Sweden, seven in Denmark, five in Norway, and four in Finland. Iceland is not represented on the list of the Nordic region’s biggest media companies.
The majority of the 25 largest media companies have a long history, and several of them have roots all the way back to the nineteenth century. But there are also relatively young companies on the list; six companies were started in the 2000s. One of these, Spotify, was launched in 2008 as a purely digital business, and it has, through rapid growth, come to occupy first place on the list of the Nordic region’s largest media companies in terms of turnover. With 486 million active users in 184 countries, Spotify is also the only truly global media company on the list. The other Nordic countries are important markets for most of the largest Nordic media companies, and 15 of the 25 companies operate in at least two Nordic countries. The public service media companies form the core of the group of companies that operate only within the borders of one country.
Of the total of nineteen companies on the top list that are not public service media companies, ten reported a positive result before tax in 2022. Nine companies reported a loss. The highest profit margin before tax (+28% in relation to revenues) was reported by the Finnish media company Alma Media. The main profit margin before tax in 2022, among the 20 profit-making companies (the non–public service media and Danish TV2) on the top-25 list, was +1 per cent.
Methodological notes
Listings of the relative size of contemporary major media companies warrant several methodological considerations.
A first concern is the definition of “media”. In this analysis, we have applied a broad definition to the concept of media, including companies not only involved in media production (such as newspapers, TV and radio channels, movies, magazines, or books), but also in provision of digital media services (such as broadband and mobile and fixed-line telephony), and the distribution – or bundling – of mediated content, such as terrestrial, satellite, cable and on-demand television, and online streaming services. Considering the structural development of the Nordic news media markets in recent years, it is notable that several previously “single function” media companies have ventured horizontally into other parts of the media value chain.
Regarding the measurement of the size of individual companies, our list is based on total revenue of the companies concerned. This means that “non-media” revenue streams are also included in the data. The same thing applies, of course, for revenue stemming from sales outside the Nordic region.
A final methodological concern is related to domicile. In the contemporary globalised economy and capital markets, it is increasingly difficult to pinpoint a national label for many media firms, especially if ownership is dispersed over several countries. Our definition of “Nordic” in this factsheet builds not on the domicile of the majority owner, but on whether the company is headquartered in a Nordic country. This definition precludes global players such as Google and Netflix – which arguably control significant market shares in the Nordic media markets in terms of revenue – from entering the list.