Newspaper circulation and readership in Iceland has traditionally been very high, but it is steadily declining, as shown in Figure 1.
Source: Nordicom (2019a)
As of February 2020, in the 18–80 age group, the two national dailies, Morgunblaðið and Fréttablaðið, were read by 23.4 per cent and 37.2 per cent, respectively. (Galllup, n.d.-a). A free national weekly newspaper, Mannlíf (now only available online), reached 16 per cent, while two national paid non-dailies, DV and Viðskiptablaðið (a business paper) reached around 5 per cent each. These were the only papers that participated in Gallup’s present readership survey. The free paper, Fréttablaðið, is delivered to people’s homes in the capital area, in addition to being available at key locations for free pickup in other areas, and, unsurprisingly, it is more widely read in the capital area, or by 46 per cent as of February 2020. Compared with those who were older, printed papers were read less by the young. Of these, Morgunblaðið reached 12.6 per cent among 18–49-year-olds, and Fréttablaðið was read by 27 per cent in this age group, as per data from February 2020 (Gallup, n.d.-a).
Meanwhile, the reach of public broadcaster RÚV’s main news broadcast at 19:00 had been fairly stable, with around 30–35 per cent among 12–80-year-olds. Within this demographic, it was followed by Channel 2’s main and only news broadcast, which showed an average reach among 20–25 per cent (Gallup, n.d.-b).
Source: Gallup
Online news reaches more people. The most-read online news are those run by established private media organisations. On average, close to 200,000 people use mbl.is and visir.is each day (total population is 360,000). The public broadcaster, RÚV, has not been nearly as successful online as on traditional platforms and typically is in the fourth place of most-read online news sites, with 80,00,000–100,000 users per day (Gallup.n.d.-d).
Iceland has not participated in the Reuters Digital News Report, but Jóhannsdóttir (2021) conducted a survey using the report’s questionnaire among a representative sample of Icelandic populace aged 18 years and older in 2017. The findings showed that Icelanders were enthusiastic news consumers. Nearly 87 per cent reported they accessed news several times a day – men more often than women (92% vs. 82%), but age and education did not make a significant difference in the frequency of access. A majority of respondents (61%) said they were extremely or very interested in news. At least 72 per cent of men were extremely or very interested, compared with 50 per cent of women, and those under 25 were seen to be less interested than their older counterparts.
The majority used online news (41%) and social media (17%) as their main news source, compared with the traditional platforms: television (23%), radio (12%), and printed newspapers (7%). It was also observed that the age gap in platforms used was considerable. Only among those 55 and older were traditional platforms the main news source of the majority (72%). Among those between 18–24 years old, social media was a main source of news (38%) as was the use of online news (42%), and only 20 per cent used traditional media as their main source of news.
The findings showed that news consumption was a cross-media experience, and people accessed news both online and offline. In a typical week, on average, they accessed news on eight different media outlets. Traditional Icelandic news media organisations are dominant in people’s news consumption. Nearly 97 per cent consumers access online news sites, which are outlets of either legacy broadcasting or print media organisations.
Overall, the study shows that news is widely consumed in Iceland irrespective of age, gender, or education (Jóhannsdóttir, 2021). However, little is known about the reach of news among Iceland’s growing immigrant population. In 2019, 14.1 per cent of its population were immigrants, and 38.1 per cent of those were from Poland (Statistics Iceland, 2019). The biggest media outlets have recently started to offer news in English or Polish to cater to the needs of immigrants; however, no statistics or research is at hand on the availability or use of news among them.
