In all Nordic countries, privately owned news media can apply for direct subsidies from the state. This factsheet looks at direct support in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden – describing the main regulatory framework and subsidy schemes. The political processes to modernise subsidies are also briefly described.
Some take-aways:
- The largest forms of Nordic subsidies are production or operating subsidies, based on editorial costs or circulation and reach.
- The last Nordic country to introduce direct support was Iceland in 2020, roughly fifty years after Norway, which was first in 1969.
- Unlike the rest of the Nordic countries, Finland has direct support only for news media in minority languages (including Swedish, the smaller of Finland's two national languages).
- Denmark and Norway have media subsidies acts and Iceland has a media act. In Sweden, there is a proposal to introduce a media subsidies act as of 2024.
- Common in the countries’ political proposals is a redistribution of subsidies in favour of local media.
The factsheet links to Nordic statistics on direct subsidies to news media in 2000–2021.
Find more factsheets on Nordic media
Investigations on media subsidies can be found in Nordicom's compilations of media-related investigations and other official documents from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden.
Statistics on media subsidies in the Nordic region can be found via link in the factsheet or directly via Nordicom's table database (filter Region by “Nordic” and Media by “Newspapers”).
Eva Harrie