Newspapers, broadcast, and online services are still widely available nationwide. Although the reach of printed newspapers has been declining, the combined weekly reach of both printed and online papers continues to remain very high, at 92 per cent (Reunanen, 2019). Most newspaper sales are still based on subscription and home delivery, but early-morning delivery is now available only for 8 per cent of total volume of newspapers, which is about 10 percentage points less than in the 2011 MDM study. The total number of newspapers (176) has declined by almost 15 per cent since 2008, while the number of dailies (40) has declined by more than 20 per cent. Now, there are at least two regional centres without their own newspapers.
Besides printed dailies and their online editions, there are also two remarkable digital daily papers with no print edition, Taloussanomat (economic news section of Ilta-Sanomat) and Uusi Suomi. Most of the other newspapers – mainly local publications – are also present online. However, the amount of free online content has declined, as most publications sell their content with digital subscriptions and paywalls; for example, at the moment, two-thirds of HS subscribers pay for their digital content. Only afternoon papers Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti offer their content online for free. Consequently, their online versions now have more readers than print.
The original plan was that the first generation of digital terrestrial network television (DBV-T), with 99.96 per cent technical reach, would be shut down and replaced with the second generation of DBV-T in March 2020; however, that was delayed due to a legal dispute. The new nationwide network was completed by June 2020, but the date of the switchover has not yet been set. Over 80 per cent of television-owning households already have DBV-T2 compatible receivers. The number of free nationwide television channels (18) has almost doubled in ten years since 2008. The growth of pay television has stalled to one quarter of households, while satellite television has declined to only 3 per cent. The share of cable and Internet Protocol Television households has also increased over 10 percentage points to 60 per cent (Ala-Fossi et al., 2020).
In 2020, there are altogether 18 nationwide or at least semi-national private radio channels and 53 regional or local private stations. However, the total number of private licence-holders has decreased to 29, mostly because of changes in frequency allocation as well as ownership concentration. Meanwhile, Yle, Finland’s national public broadcasting company – with a legal obligation to provide equal services on a nationwide basis – has six radio channels with at least 50 per cent population coverage, meaning that in most areas, people can choose between 15 to 20 radio stations (Ala-Fossi et al., 2020).
Online television viewing now has about 3 per cent share of the weekly reach among the total population, and it is about 7 per cent of the total viewing time. At the same time, both the daily and weekly reach of television is declining (Ala-Fossi et al., 2020). The online audio and video service of national public media, Yle Areena, is still the most extensive and increasingly popular online television and radio service, with a growing amount of online-only content. The main commercial broadcasters provide both free and premium content online.
Interestingly, only 5 per cent of households in Finland are still completely without Internet connection. Within less than ten years, mobile broadband has become so popular that 92 per cent of households are using it, and for 41 per cent, it is their only Internet connection. In addition, the monthly use of mobile data per subscription is the highest in the world (19.39 gigabyte). The minimum speed of universal service broadband available for all households nationwide was doubled to two megabits per second in 2015, but since then, there has not been any proposal to improve it until the latest government programme in 2019. Fast, 30 megabits per second fixed broadband is already available in 73 per cent of households, but only 29 per cent use it (Ala-Fossi et al., 2020).
