Challenging times for the Swedish media market

Event
 | 26 November 2020
Digital advertising platforms dominate, the newspaper market has reached a new bottom and the corona pandemic caused a socioeconomic breakdown with severe consequences for the advertising market. These are some of the results from the 2020 edition of Medieutveckling – Medieekonomi, an annual report about media economics in Sweden, published by the Swedish Press and Broadcasting Authority.

The Swedish media market is constantly changing, mainly due to accelerating technological development. While the Internet and digital media technology provide new opportunities, established media corporations are challenged by changes in advertising and audience behaviour. In addition, the corona pandemic has had a dramatic impact on the media market in 2020.

The report Medieutveckling – Medieekonomi 2020 presents and analyses the structural and economic development of the Swedish media market in 2019. To give insight into the economic consequences of the corona pandemic for media, it also accounts for data already available from 2020.

Some results from the report

  • In 2019, the growth of the advertising market was limited to 2.6 per cent. Still, the total revenue of SEK 40.8 billion was the highest ever.
  • A large part of the growth in advertising sales went to digital advertising platforms, mainly Google and Facebook. Of every Swedish krona spent on advertising in 2019, 58 per cent went to web-based channels.
  • The Swedish newspaper market reached a new bottom in 2019, as sales dropped by around SEK 1 billion.
  • The metropolitan newspapers dominate the digital market, and it is mainly for local newspapers that digitalisation has had negative consequences. Of 17 rural newspaper companies, 15 had a loss-making year in 2019.
  • In the spring of 2020, the corona pandemic caused a socioeconomic breakdown, leading to severe consequences for the advertising market. During the second quarter of the year, a loss in growth of 18 per cent was registered, which was the largest drop ever registered in Sweden.

Julia Romell

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