The Press Market in Finland Magazines in a Turmoil

The vast country of 304.473 sqkm has 5.231.372 inhabitants, meaning a density as low as 14 persons per square kilometer. There are two official languages, Finnish and Swedish. The Swedish speaking population is 290.000 equalling 5.6%. Due to ist eastern border with Russia, Finland is in a strategically important location.

The history of a strong paper industry
As the countryside between the 188.000 lakes was mainly covered by forests and rivers, timber products were easy to haul to the plants, where paper was produced, causing this industry to be called «the green gold of Finland». The industry is still of great importance, and a large number of publishers around the world buy paper from Finland. With the extinction of qualified wood, however, the industry has been forced to seek for material from surrounding areas, and today much wood comes from the former Finnish ground of Carelia, which was ceded to Russia after WWII.

Focus on subscriptions
In this large country with its low population density, people were, before moving to the population centres, living quite separated from the surrounding, even from the nearest neighbour, without other entertainment possibilities than reading books and magazines. Kiosks were far away and the literature was ordered directly home, books through popular book clubs and magazines by subscription through agencies. When the cities started to grow (the capital Helsinki has today 565.000 inhabitants, and over 1.000.000 with the surrounding urban area) people continued to order the magazines to the home addresses. The magazine market is today consisting of about 85% subscriptions and only 15% is sold in the outlets. That explains its low single copy sales. Especially morning newspapers are delivered home early in the morning, while the evening papers are not subscribable, and therefore bought at kiosks, supermarkets, gas stations, bookstores, department stores, restaurants etc. There are two major papers on the evening paper market, Ilta-Sanomat with 60% and Iltalehtiwith 40% of the total, but the latter has cut down part of the lap in 2006. After a third local Swedish paper had to close down, these are the only two players left. Swedish-speakers also buy original Swedish papers, mostly along the border with Sweden.

High readership
205 newspapers with a total circulation of over 3.2 milllion are published in Finland today. The morning papers are read by 2,5 people each, the evening papers by approximately 5 people. The future of newspapers in Finland is in secure hands with 87% of youngsters over 12 years reading them every day. This is a very promising development and a good sign for the editors, that they are doing a proper job and that the layout must be alluring. Many papers have turned their size into the popular tabloid, which seems to have attracted new readers. Magazines, especially the weeklies, have always been on subscriptions, but the urban population is following the same pattern as their European fellowmen. They are increasingly buying the magazines at retail outlets – especially young people prefer to choose their copies by the cover and not to obtain them traditionally by post. The magazine business has been highly internationalized after EU came along. Danish and Swedish publishing houses entered the market and promised to enlarge their market share considerably in the next few years. National Geographic, among others, has been published in Finnish, and the last area to be conquered is the women’s titles, very powerful in Finland, with a brand new title called Oliviaby Bonnier. The single copy sales have steadily stayed around 20 million copies of the local press and around 3 million copies of foreign titles per year between 2000 and 2005. These yearly sales are worth 100 million Euro. The number one publisher in Finland is the Helsinki based SanomaWSOY plc with an annual turnover of 2.742 million Euro. They publish dailies such as the Helsingin Sanomat and Ilta-Sanomatplus a economical daily TalousSanomat. The magazine division Sanoma Magazines publishes over 50 titles in Finland with a turnover of 1.028 million Euro, as they have enlarged their market enormously into Europe. They are present in 12 countries with a total of 232 titles. SanomaWSOY also has an internet division called Startel, and is involved in the television business with an own channel Nelonen (the Finnish TV4). The other big publisher is Alma Media plc, turnover 302 million Euro, with a similar company structure as SanomaWSOY. They are based in Tampere and publish dailies Aamulehti, Iltalehtiand economical Kauppalehti. They also had a TV-channel called MTV3, which has in the meantime been sold to Swedish Bonnier. The Finnish publishing field is in a turmoil as foreigners are entering the markets more intensively. Aller and Bonnier from Denmark and Sweden, Orkla from Norway, and many more in the years to come. This, of course, is bringing up counter-attacks from the local side. New magazines are planned all the time, especially on the women genre, for ladies in the 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s. This is a good sign, too, as only the qualified stay alive. Everything is following the pattern of nature, and the life of the printed magazine continues, which we all should be grateful for.

Author: Tom Backman