Finland is a comparatively rich country characterised by a generally high cost of living. In relation to the average household income, the prices of mass media are generally not exceptionally high. On average, Finnish households spent EUR 946 (2.5% of total consumption expenditure) on mass media in 2016 (down from 4.1% one decade earlier). However, this excluded telecommunication, which accounted for an additional 2.3 per cent of total consumption (Statistics Finland, 2020d). Statistics Finland also published information on media consumption by household income and education level. It showed that the percentage of income used on media services is more or less the same in all income and education groups.
The annual subscriptions to daily newspapers are generally between EUR 300–400 (up from the average of EUR 225 in 2010), while an annual subscription to the largest newspaper HS (print and digital, without discount) is currently EUR 469. Newspapers also offer various discounts for students, weekend-only subscriptions, and other combinations of print and online services. Most newspapers have introduced a paywall in the last ten years, decreasing the amount of free content online; however, less than one-fifth of the adult population paid for online news in 2019 (Newman et al., 2019). The availability of free newspapers distributed in public transportation has also declined in the last ten years. The free daily Metro that was distributed in the Helsinki region public transportation since 1999, for example, ceased publication in 2020, partly due to the Covid-19 disruptions.
A special public broadcasting tax, which replaced the television licence fee in 2013, funds the public service broadcasting in Finland. In contrast to the old licence fee, the tax is income-adjusted. As a result, individuals pay an earmarked tax up to a maximum of EUR 163 per year (in 2020), with those earning less than EUR 14,000 exempt from the tax. In comparison, the annual television fee in 2010 was EUR 231 per household. Meanwhile, all Yle services are free of charge, available to all, and funded entirely by the tax, with no advertising or sponsoring allowed.
Access to broadband is designated as a universal service in Finland, which means that all households across Finland have the legal right to a reasonably priced connection at a minimum speed to be periodically reviewed (proposed to be raised from 2 to 5 megabits per second in 2020). According to the ICT industry association Federation for Communications and Teleinformatics, the price of broadband access has slightly decreased in recent years, with 10 megabits per second fixed connections costing EUR 25, and 100 megabits per second around EUR 50, on average (Ficom, 2020). In the European Commission’s (2019a, 2019b) comparison of broadband prices in Europe, prices for both fixed and mobile broadband bundles in Finland are below the European average.
