Norway:
Published in the Bulletin, no. 2, 1998
European Institute of the Media, Dusseldorf
In the nineteen eighties Norwegian newspaper consumption increased
with a startling 30 percent, making Norwegians the most newspaper
reading nation in the world. The following nations were Finland,
Japan and Switzerland, where newspaper sales have been quite stable,
according to UNESCO statistics.
In the nineties, the sales have had a small decline. Now new
statistics supports the notion that the Norwegian audience is leaving
its newspapers, and foremost the younger part of the population.
In a new book on media consumption, Head of Research, Mr. Sigurd Host
by the press-owned Institute of Journalism shows that the total sales
of newspapers is relatively stable. But the number of households
without a newspaper is increasing. In 1980 only seven percent of
housholds did not subscribe to a daily newspaper, while in 1995
eleven percent of the households did not subscribe to a daily
newspaper. But the entire four percent drop stems from young people
and young families quitting their subscription. One out of four
people younger than thirty years of age said they did not subscribe
to a newspaper. In 1980 only ten percent did not subscribe to
newspaper. So for young Norwegians - subscribing to a daily newspaper
is no longer the default value.
Mr. Host explains the drop by competition from television - the
public service national broadcaster was virtually without competition
until 1992. But changes making the ties to local community weaker is
also important since most Norwegian newspapers are local.
The miscarriage of local tv
1997 was expected to be the break-through for local-tv in Norway. In
1996 the Ministry of Culture and Media granted local monopolies for
local-tv in 30 different regions, and most of the companies got
started during 1997. After the first year in business the financial
situtation is depressing for most of the stations. None is making
profit, a few is running on break-even, while the big slump is facing
heavy losses and have been forced to lower costs and journalistic
ambitions. This in spite of an all-time high in advertising in
general.
The most spectacular of the new stations was the Newschannel. Its
ambition was to become the Norwegian CNN. The location was the
attractive market of the Norwegian capital Oslo. The journalists made
high quality reporting. But the station was almost unable to attract
any advertisers at all. In February the total loss made up a good 50
mill. NOK, and the owners, mainly the former social democratic press,
The A-pressen, fired the staff of 90 people and have later on tried
to return with a more financially viable project.
By Johann Roppen
Research Fellow, University of Bergen, Norway
jr@hivolda.no