A handful of actors control Swedish media

Published December 17, 2024 at 1:06 PM

Media. Over the past ten years, the number of owners of Swedish news media has decreased – and now a very small group of large players completely dominates the market. This is shown by a new report from Nordicom at the University of Gothenburg.

Share the article

TwittraShare

Recently, the news that Bonnier News Local and NWT Media have entered into a letter of intent regarding partnership and cross-ownership.

It was news that was in line with the trend in the Swedish media market in recent years. Rarely, if ever, have so many sweeping market and ownership changes taken place in just ten years.

Between 2014 and 2024, advertisers have shifted large parts of their advertising investments from Swedish news media to global advertising platforms. Consumers, in turn, have become increasingly digital in their media and news habits. More and more people are watching TV via streaming services and listening to radio via the internet. This is a development that commercially funded media companies, which primarily engage in news journalism, have tried to meet by merging into larger structures.

– Since 1990 alone, the number of owner companies in the Swedish newspaper market has decreased from 130 to today's fewer than 60. A large part of this decrease has occurred in the last ten years, says Tobias Lindberg, media researcher at Nordicom.

It is in the newspaper market that the truly extensive ownership changes have taken place. Not only have the owner companies become fewer, they have also become part of increasingly larger groups. And often with the express purpose of cutting costs and achieving synergy effects in digital technology development and in the advertising market. Today, a very large proportion of the country's more than 140 daily newspapers are part of a few overall ownership spheres.

– During these years, foreign ownership has also increased. And this is primarily due to the fact that Norway's three major newspaper groups, Amedia, Polaris and Schibsted, are now owners of the Swedish market, says Tobias Lindberg in a dispatch.

According to the report, the media industry's structural transformation in recent years has been driven by, among other things, the economic downturn that Sweden and the rest of the world experienced during the financial crisis, the public's changing media habits and the fierce competition in the advertising market from global platforms.