Generally speaking, prices for newspapers, broadcast media, and the Internet are reasonable, as Sweden is a comparably rich country. Comparisons with other countries also show that Swedes are generally more willing to pay for news on digital platforms.
The change from licence fees to the tax system means that every individual now pays a maximum of EUR 130 for public service media every year. Prices for print newspaper subscriptions have risen significantly, and the number of subscriptions for print newspapers has declined. In 2017, for the first time, the majority of Swedish households did not have a newspaper subscription, not even a digital one (Facht & Ohlsson, 2019).
Statistics show that Swedish households’ overall costs for media use are now dominated by digital media, broadband connections, and mobile communications. At the same time, money spent on news media consumption has declined (see Table 7). During the period between 2014 and 2018, households’ average total costs for media use increased from circa EUR 1,658 per year to circa EUR 1,966. The rise in costs was dominated by access costs (subscriptions) and video (streaming, pay-TV). During the same period, households’ average costs for news media decreased from about EUR 170 per year to about EUR 157 (MPRT, 2019).
[supsystic-tables id=46]
So, even if a majority of Swedish individuals and households still find single news media affordable in relation to their incomes, increasing media costs related to digital media technology have affected media budgets, and less money is now spent on news media than before.
