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Media Landscape - Sweden

INTRODUCTION

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Sweden is situated in the north of Europe. It is the largest of the Nordic countries with 9 million inhabitants. The national language is Swedish. The country is socially and culturally homogenous, but gradually changing because of immigration, mostly in metropolitan areas. Sweden is characterised by its strong welfare system. In the 1990s there was an economic recession with increasing unemployment, but the beginning of the 21st century has meant economic recovery and a strong growth.

Strong political parties and organisations are typical for Swedish politics. There is a clear left-right-dimension in political preferences of the Swedish electorate, but government politics is generally in the middle of the road. The social democrats have been the leading party since the 1930s, but are gradually loosing ground. After the 2006 election a non-socialist government was formed.


1. WRITTEN PRESS

The newspaper market is very strong and readership is high in most social groups. More than 80 per cent of the adult population read a newspaper on an average day. There are about 160 papers in Sweden.

The total audit circulation figures of dailies, published at least four days a week, in 2005 was about 3.6 million, equivalent to roughly 420 copies per 1000 inhabitants. The circulation also including the non-dailies amounts 4 million. In addition, the circulation of the free dailies was estimated at 0.9 million copies in 2005.

The newspaper market is characterised by five main features. First, newspapers are mainly locally or regionally based, in fact, only two tabloid newspapers and one business paper can be regarded as having a national readership and secondly, almost 100 per cent of the morning newspapers are sold by subscription, with early morning home delivery. A third feature is the fact that almost all social groups read newspapers. A fourth point is the state press subsidy system, which, however, nowadays plays a minor role for the newspaper structure in general. A final feature is the strong presence of free dailies, mainly distributed in metropolitan areas.

The Swedish newspaper market is traditionally divided into five main segments:

  1. The metropolitan morning papers: dailies published in the three main cities Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö. This group represents about 25 per cent of total newspaper circulation.

  2. The metropolitan single copy sale papers: two tabloid dailies published in Stockholm, Aftonbladet (429,000 and the biggest Swedish newspaper) and Expressen (339,000), including local editions in Göteborg (GT) and Malmö (Kvällsposten), all published seven days a week focused on entertainment and sports. The group represents about 20 per cent of total newspaper circulation.

  3. The regional and local papers: all other papers published at least three times a week, the biggest being Helsingborgs Dagblad, Helsingborg (84,000), Dalarnas Tidningar, Falun (65,000) and Nerikes Allehanda, Örebro (62,000). Most papers in the group are published six days a week, and sold almost exclusively on subscription. The average circulation amounts to about 35,000 copies. They represent about 45 per cent of the total circulation.

  4. The low-frequent papers, comprising all general newspapers published once or twice a week, both local papers in the metropolitan areas and small regional papers, all of them with small circulation and mostly in tabloid size. The group represents less than 10 per cent of the total newspaper circulation.

  5. The free dailies form a group of their own, since their circulation is calculated differently from paid newspapers. The biggest paper is Metro (400,000), six days a week, with editions in Stockholm (launched in 1995), Göteborg (1998) and Malmö (1999), and Stockholm City (250,000) five days a week, in Stockholm and from 2006 also in Göteborg and Malmö.

The dominating actor on the newspaper market is the Bonnier Group, with over a quarter of the total newspaper circulation. Second biggest is the Stampen Group (Göteborgs-Posten and a lot of local papers). A typical feature of the Swedish newspaper market is regionally based chains, e.g. the Ander Group, Karlstad and the Herenco Group, Jönköping. The Bonnier Group also owns several newspapers abroad, mostly in the Baltic area, including Poland.

There is a slow decline in circulation of paid newspapers. The newspaper business has generally a good economy, even though it has lost in shares of the advertising market to television.

The magazine market, characterised by a quite large degree of concentration, .is strong, especially in the area of specialised magazines. The general popular magazines are only 25 and have, like in most other countries, a declining circulation. However, the specialised magazines - devoted to food, sports, computers, science, etc. - have expanded rapidly. Within the magazine industry the main publishers, such as the Bonnier (mostly specialised magazines) and the Aller Group (mostly popular magazines), have survived and even increased in importance.


2. AUDIOVISUAL MEDIA

In 2005 radio reached 74 per cent of the Swedes and television 86 per cent. Radio listening has gradually decreased in the latter years in Sweden, probably because of the expansion of MP3 players, which in 2005 had a reach of 10 per cent. Viewing time for television is somewhat increasing, but only slowly. In a European comparison the time spent on television is low in Sweden.

The public service is strong both in radio and television but it is gradually loosing the youth audience.

On the radio market the public service company Sveriges Radio (Swedish Radio) is the dominant actor. It has about 60 per cent of the radio audience market. It offers three national channels, P1 (news, culture and public affairs), P2 (classical music) and P3 (youth) and one regional channel, P4, which offers news and current affairs programming in 25 regions. P4 also contains some national programming especially news and sports. It is targeted for an age group of 40 plus and is the individual Swedish radio channel with the highest ratings (about 37 per cent in 2005).

The private radio market has from its start been under economic pressure. The stations have not attracted as large an audience as expected and their percentage of the media advertising has been only 3 percent (2005), less than the half of the European average. Most stations have been making substantial losses, one consequence of which is an increasing concentration in the private radio market. In 2005 two companies – the MTG and the SBS – controlled most of the stations.

Public service television is organised by Sveriges Television (SVT; Swedish Television). It had monopoly on terrestrial television until 1992. It broadcasts in three channels: SVT1, SVT2 and SVT24. SVT1 is the most popular and broader channel, whereas SVT2 is profiled as more specialised. Moreover, the SVT24 is a 24 hours news and current affairs channel. Further, SVT distributes a digital children’s channel. The television market share for SVT1+SVT2 was in 2005 38.5 per cent.

Today the main commercial broadcaster is TV4 (23.2 per cent of the TV market in 2005), competing with five Swedish satellite channels, where the biggest are TV3 (10.5) and Kanal 5 (9.2) and the smaller ZTV, TV6 and TV8, with audience shares of some one per cent.

The development of commercial radio and television was relatively late, privately owned television channels financed by advertising were introduced in Sweden in the second half on the 1980s.

There is an increasing fragmentation of both radio and television audiences, reinforced by the ongoing digitalisation process. Terrestrial digital television is gradually introduced, and in 2008 the analogue transmissions will be switched off.

The television industry has generally a good economy, whereas the commercial radio has not been an economic success.


3. NEWS AGENCIES

Sweden has one national news agency, Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå (TT), founded in 1921. It is owned by a company formed by the three biggest newspaper groups: Bonniers, Schibsted and Stampen.

The importance of centrally produced pages increasing.

There are also some minor agencies, mainly specialised in feature material on economic and cultural affairs.


4. ONLINE MEDIA

In 2005 about three fourths of the population between 15 and 85 lived in households with Internet access. About 50 per cent of the Swedes use the Internet regularly and the number is expanding because of the increasing access to broadband (in 2005 around 40 per cent). Thus the daily Internet reach is predicted to exceed 65 per cent in 2006.

A lot of newspapers started web versions of the print paper already in the mid 1990s or soon after that. In the early 21st century almost all Swedish newspapers have developed online versions.

The most popular online medium by far is Aftonbladet.se founded by the newspaper with the same name in 1995 with almost 3 million unique visitors per week, meaning a national reach of 33 per cent.

It has been the problem to attract advertising to the net media, which also means that most papers still loose money on their online services. However, the online service has been regarded important as a complement to print or broadcasting and an investment in knowledge for the future.


5. MEDIA ORGANIZATIONS

The Swedish media world is characterised by a small number of very powerful organisations. Tidningsutgivarna (TU; The Association of Newspaper Publishers) is both an interest group and an organisation for labour negotiations. Almost all Swedish newspapers are members of this organisation. There is no comparable association for the radio and television industry.

The organisation of magazine publishers (Sveriges Tidskrifter) is fairly strong as well

Svenska Journalistförbundet (SJF; The Union of Swedish Journalists) has about 18,000 members and is considered to be very strong. The level of organisation of Swedish journalists is almost 100 per cent and the SJF is the only professional organisation. It is also responsible for labour negotiations.

A third organisation, Publicistklubben (PK; The Publicists' Club), is an organisation of publishers and journalists, interested in the ethical conduct of Swedish mass media. Together with the TU and the SJF it formed the Swedish accountability system by setting up the first Press Council.


6. NATIONAL MEDIA POLICIES

Media legislation is based on long tradition of media freedom. .It is regulated in a basic law originally from 1766. Freedom is granted also for the content of radio and television by a parallel basic law, the Freedom of Expression Act. Additional laws regulate organisational and technical conditions. Internet is generally treated like the press, meaning a freedom to establish sites and no restriction on contents. The basic laws on press freedom also grant citizens’ access to public documents.

In terms of active state policy there are state subsidies to economically weak newspapers introduced in the early 1970s. Today they represent only about three per cent of the total revenues of the Swedish press, but can be very important for individual papers. There are also some indirect benefits for all newspapers, e.g. a reduced VAT (six per cent instead of the general one of 25 per cent) and a distribution subsidy.

The general principles of broadcasting are presented in the Freedom of Expression Act. Details are set out in the Radio and Television Act.

All radio and television programmes, with the exception of satellite channels from abroad, are formally supervised by a government agency, the Broadcasting Commission (Granskningsnämnden för radio och TV).

There are some content regulations for radio and television specified in contractual agreements and supervised by public agencies.

There are controversies concerning the regulation of media ownership. The last proposal of potential measures to restrict ownership dominance was delivered in 1999 but has not been implemented.


7. ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEMS

The Swedish accountability system has a long tradition. The first rules, decided by the so called Publicists’ Club (PK) – an organisation of people working in the newspaper trade, later also other media, both editors, journalists and writers – in 1900, concerned fairness in publishing. Gradually the rules were extended, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, when a Press Ombudsman (PO) was established by the press organisations. In 1968 the Association of Swedish Journalists (SJF) decided on a professional code of conduct. The Press Council was established in 1916.

Today there are three sets of rules, which form the basis of the media accountability system in Sweden.

  1. The publicity rules (the rules of good journalistic practice): these rules regulate the fairness of reporting, respect of privacy, the rights of interviewees, the right to reply and the treatment of pictures and so forth.

  2. The rules of professional journalism: these rules deal chiefly with the journalist's professional conduct and concern the integrity of journalists, humiliating assignments, acquisition of material, relations with news sources and so forth.

  3. The guidelines of editorial advertising: these former rules cover the relationship between advertising and editorial content. They state that news should be judged by news value, not by advertising value. All the rules are voluntary, initiated by independent organisations, in order to prevent legislation.

There is a strong anchoring of the accountability systems among both publishers and journalists.

No consumer organisations are active in observing the media development but some smaller watch groups observe the media content and contribute to media debate, especially in the field of immigration.


8. CONCLUSIONS

Stability in the general media development. Internet will continue to expand as a media arena because of increasing broadband access. Both newspapers and public service media have already a very strong presence on the net. The importance of the net as distribution form of news is gradually increasing. However, media based only on net publication are few. Thus, traditional media companies probably will continue their control of the net media. In this perspective it is to expect that the newspaper companies can compensate the decline of print with the Internet versions of the papers.

Media concentration is gradually increasing but only slowly. On the local markets a number of mergers between local newspaper companies have created a debate on the pluralism. On the national level the leading Bonnier Group has met competition from the Swedish expansion of the Norwegian Schibsted Group, in the newspaper field from both the MTG and the Stampen Groups and in radio from SBS.

Swedish media companies expand abroad: Bonnier has about half of its revenues from media activities in other countries, mostly newspapers, magazines and books. MTG is the second biggest in foreign investments, most through the free daily Metro but also in radio, television and telecom.

The audience fragmentation in Sweden has meant a strong age segregation, where traditional newspapers and public service are preferred by the elderly and the new commercial media, including the free dailies, by the youth. Age segregation in the use of media might lead to a shift in media preferences in the next generations.


9. PRIME SOURCES FOR DETAILED INFORMATION

Basic information sources of the Swedish media are the following:

  • Statistics on the newspaper market are found in TS-boken, the annual publication concerning the audit circulation figures (http://www.ts.se).

  • The Nordicom, the information centre on media and media research at Göteborg University regularly publishes analyses of media developments in Sweden (http://www.nordicom.gu.se). It also carries out an annual study of media use, called Mediebarometern (the Media Barometer). Current media Statistics is also available from the homepage of Nordicom.

  • Every second year, MediaSverige (‘Media Sweden’) is published by the Nordicom, presenting all basic statistics and covering the development of most media. There is also an English version called Media Trends covering all the Nordic countries, which is published on non-regular basis.

  • Dagspresskollegiet, at the Göteborg University, regularly presents data on readership development, most of them available on the Internet (http://www.jmg.gu.se).

  • The SOM Institute, also at the Göteborg University, annually publishes Swedish Trends, presenting data on media and public opinion in Sweden based an surveys (http://www.som.gu.se).

  • Radio och TV-verket (The Government agency for radio and television publishes a yearbook presenting statistics and current trends for the broadcasting area, including satellite and cable (http://www.rtvv.se).

  • The textbook Massmedier by Stig Hadenius and Lennart Weibull, published by Albert Bonniers förlag and updated regularly (latest edition 2005), offers a general introduction to the Swedish media system.


10. AUTHORS

Lennart Weibull, Dr in political science, is professor of Media Research at the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at the Göteborg University. He has written numerous books, reports and articles on media structure, media policy and media audience. Currently he is directing research projects into newspaper readership and media attitudes. He is co-author the classic textbook Massmedier, published in 1970 and with the latest edition in 2005.

Anna Maria Jönsson, Dr in Journalism and Mass Communication, is senior lecturer at the University College of Södertörn, south of Stockholm. She has made research mainly in the field of television, especially television news. Her research interests are media structure and media development, especially in the radio and television field.


11. MEDIA RESOURCES

Newspapers

Audio/Visual Media

Television

Radio

Media Institutions

Blogs/Civil Media

Excerpt from EUROPEAN MEDIA GOVERNANCE: THE NATIONAL AND REGIONAL DIMENSIONS, published by Intellect (http://www.intellectbooks.com).

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