Fundamental structural changes have taken place in regional media markets in recent years. In 2019, the biggest national media owner Bonnier and Norwegian media company Amedia bought Mittmedia with its 28 local newspapers. Later in the same year, another Norwegian media consortium, Polaris, become the main owner of Stampen, the leading newspaper company in the Gothenburg region. Finally, Bonnier and Amedia also took over Hall Media in February 2020. Sweden is now strictly geographically divided between a few media owner groups, and the trend is definitely moving towards increased concentration. True competitive regional media markets are very rare, and only a limited number of newspapers do not belong to one of the main media owner groups. In 2017, the three biggest regional newspaper owners’ share of the total circulation of daily regional newspapers was 51 per cent.
Private regional newspapers’ main competitors are regional public service media. Regional public service radio offers 26 regional stations and 21 versions of regional television news are produced by 34 editorial offices all over the country. In 2015, the public broadcaster SVT opened four new editorial offices. The fourth public service radio channel, P4, is dominated by regional news and programmes. Regional television news is not offered on separate television channels but appears in regional news windows on the national channels. Public service broadcast media are the only regional and local news providers in radio and television. In 2014, the commercial competitor TV4 decided to close down its local television stations for economic reasons.
Overall, media ownership concentration has increased during the recent decade, and this development is more prominent regionally than on a national level. Despite this trend, most relevant regions in Sweden still have a competitive regional media market with both private media companies and public service media present.
