Online activities of Finnish newspapers in the changing media business environment
Abstract
This article is concerned with changing online strategies in newspaper publishing. It examines the situation through the case of Finland, a country with an exceptionally high rate of printed press circulation. Despite declining readership, newspapers have still maintained a relatively stable economic position. Newspaper publishers have not rushed into online operations and other new forms of production and distribution because the traditional business models have secured their economy. Within a European perspective, Finland is an exceptional market for newspapers because subscriptions have such a solid foothold. The home delivery system also makes newspapers an efficient marketing channel, and daily newspapers still continue to receive the largest share of total advertising spending. In addition, newspaper publishers have been able to retain or even improve upon their profits, despite convergence trends challenging the logic of media consumption through the emergence of web-based services. In this study, our aim was to discover the views of newspaper editors and publishers on online operations now and in the near future. An online survey was conducted among newspaper editors and CEOs in 2013. The survey was sent to 236 people and 56 answers were collected (24 per cent). Respondents represented both daily and local newspapers, and the selection was geographically representative. The results show that Finnish newspapers are still slow to change, maybe because they have done so well in a protected market. They are gradually adapting to new media and online operations, though development has been faster in large dailies than in small local newspapers. Some newspapers do not even have specific online strategies. However, smaller publications might be more flexible about change in the foreseeable future. Traditional trust in quality journalism produced by professional journalists is still alive, while, at the same time, respondents foresee that the role of user-generated content is growing.
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