The press is subsidized by the government and is owned by many actors, the dominant owner being Bonnier AB. Swedish television and radio were until the mid-1980s a government monopoly, which slowly has been eroded despite resistance, with a call for prohibition of private ownership of satellite dish receivers.
Until 2019, public service media was financed by a special fee levied on owners of television or radio receivers. Reporting ownership was voluntary, but television sellers were obliged to report purchase to the government, and the government also had a special service of agents, with equipment capable of detecting emissions from television receivers, patrolling residential areas in order to catch unreported receivers. In 2018, the Riksdag voted to instead make paying for public service mandatory for all people having an income. The change was supported by all parliamentary parties except the Sweden Democrats.[1]
Swedish media has mechanisms for self-regulation, such as the Press Council.
Press
The 19th Century Swedish journalist Godfrey Renholm (1880 painting by Ernst Josephson
The Swedish press is subsidized by the government through press support. Originally this was directly distributed through the political parties to their supporting newspapers, but nowadays subsidies are more direct in form, and are tied to certain requirements, e.g. a minimum of 2000 subscribers. Support also exists in indirect form in the shape of partial tax-exceptions.[2]
The Swedish Press is self-regulated through the Public Press Ombudsman, or Allmänhetens Pressombudsman and the Swedish Press Council, or Pressens Opinionsnämnd. One example of this is that Swedish media follow a principle of not disclosing the identities of suspected criminals. There was some controversy when Dagens Nyheter on 27 September 2003 published the name and picture of Mijailo Mijailović, who was the suspected assassin of Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh.
The Swedish newspaper with the widest circulation is the evening newspaper Aftonbladet, controlled by the Norwegian media conglomerateSchibsted (majority holder) and the Swedish Trade Union Confederation. Its competitor, Expressen, is controlled by Bonnier AB and has sister editions in Gothenburg (GT) and Malmö (Kvällsposten). Bonnier AB also controls the major national morning newspaper, Dagens Nyheter. Its Stockholm competitor Svenska Dagbladet is owned by Schibsted. Göteborgs-Posten is the major regional newspaper in Gothenburg and the west of Sweden, while another Bonnier-owned newspaper, Sydsvenska Dagbladet, dominates in Malmö and the south. Bonnier AB also owns Sweden's major business newspaper, Dagens Industri. The Local is one of the few English language general news websites in the country which has been the subject of attacks by groups such as Anonymous and has seen an upsurge of people complaining of censorship and bias. In recent years, Swedish state broadcaster, Sverigesradio, has been offering a wider selection of news through its website in English.
Through its subsidiary Bonnier Tidskrifter AB, Bonnier AB also controls many of Sweden's most popular magazines, such as Amelia, Allt om Mat, Teknikens Värld and the business magazine Veckans Affärer. Other major magazine publishers in Sweden are Allers förlag, the Danish-controlled Egmont and the French Hachette Filipacchi Médias.
Television trials from the Royal Institute of Technology started in 1954. Broadcasts officially started in 1956. The broadcasts were made by the public broadcaster Sveriges Radio. When a second channel, TV2, started in 1969 it was broadcast by the same company, but the two channels were supposed to compete against each other. Since SR was split into four different companies in the late 70s, the television broadcasting has been the responsibility of Sveriges Television (SVT).
SVT and its two channels dominated television for a long time. In 1987 the first commercial channel, TV3 was started, broadcasting from London via satellite. In connection with the loosening up of the State media monopoly there was a debate regarding how to preserve the media monopoly, with Social Democratic parliamentarian Maj Britt Theorin proposing that private ownership of satellite dishes be prohibited in Sweden.
In the early 1990s, TV4 became the first commercial channel to be allowed to join the national terrestrial broadcasting network, run by Teracom. Sveriges Television is funded by a fee—fixed by Parliament and collected by the Kiruna-based Receiving Licence Agency, Radiotjänst i Kiruna AB—and is regulated, together with TV4, by the Swedish Broadcasting Commission.
Sweden was an early adopter of digital terrestrial television, officially launching it in April 1999. The analogue shutdown of the SVT and TV4 signals started in September 2005 and was completed in late 2007.
Four companies and five channels dominate the Swedish television viewing:
The main pay television distributors are: Com Hem (cable), Boxer (terrestrial), Viasat (satellite) and Canal Digital (satellite). There are also several smaller cable networks, most notably Tele2Vision and Telia Digital-tv. As of 2006, it is estimated that 50 percent of the households receive their television signals from a cable network, 30 percent from a regular aerial and 20 percent using a satellite dish.[3]
Radio
National radio is dominated by public service company Sveriges Radio (SR), which is funded through the same fee that is collected for television sets. The sale of commercial radio licenses began in the early 1990s, though commercial radio existed before this through local stations in the larger cities (närradio).
SR have four national channels: P1, P2, P3 and P4. P4 is a regional network where 25 stations broadcast locally for much of the day.
Two systems exist for private radio: community radio (närradio) and local commercial radio (PLR, privat lokalradio).
When the PLR licenses were auctioned in the early 1990s several different local stations appeared. The licensees would consolidate over the years and in 2006 almost all licenses were owned by Modern Times Group or SBS Broadcasting Group, since SBS bought Fria Media in February 2006.
Most stations are part of a network, the two largest being Rix FM (36 stations, MTG) and Mix Megapol (24 stations, SBS), both using AC-formats. Three other networks exist: The Soft AC network Lugna Favoriter (12 stations, MTG) and two CHR networks, only present in the three major cities: The Voice (SBS) and NRJ (MTG).
Journalist bias
Political party sympathies among Swedish journalists in 1999.[4]
Political party sympathies among the general Swedish population in the same year.[4]
Left Party (15 %)
Social Democrats (32 %)
Green Party (6 %)
Centre Party (4 %)
Liberal Party (5 %)
Moderate Party (25 %)
Christian Democrats (13 %)
Media in Sweden is sometimes accused of being biased towards the political left. The Department of Journalism and Mass Communication (JMG) at Gothenburg University has conducted yearly surveys regarding their political party sympathies among the members of the Swedish Union of Journalists (Swedish: Journalistförbundet), the largest trade union organizing journalists in Sweden. A survey, conducted in late 1999, has shown a significant higher percentage of support for the centre-left political parties (mainly the Left Party and the Green Party) compared to these parties' support amongst the general Swedish population.[4][needs update] 31 percent of these journalists favoured the Left Party, compared to 15 percent of the general population. However it is noted that this was a survey of trade union journalists, and may not be representative of all journalists in Sweden.
After the elections 2010, the researcher Kent Asp studied more than 1000 articles from Sweden's major newspapers and found a strong bias towards the political right. 43% of all articles written about the Red-Greens were negative, compared to only 27% written about the centre-right Alliance. When describing the political leaders of the two political blocks, a majority of all articles, 53% were negative in describing the Red-Green candidate Mona Sahlin, whereas only 30% of the articles about the Alliance candidate Fredrik Reinfeldt.[5]
I don't think either that Swedish media have any requirement whatsoever regarding fairness when it comes to the U.S. election. We have no reason to be fair and present both sides views as we would have done in a Swedish election. (Swedish: "Jag tycker heller inte att svenska medier har något som helst krav på sig på opartiskhet när det gäller valet i USA. Vi har ju ingen anledning att vara opartiska och redovisa båda ståndpunkter på samma sätt som vi skulle göra i ett svenskt val.")
After this statement Uddén was put into quarantine by the management of Sveriges Radio for the rest of the U.S. election.[6] Uddén is currently the correspondent for Sveriges Radio in the Middle East. Regarding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Uddén has stated in an interview that "in order to be able to describe the conflict honestly you have to side with the weaker part [i.e. the Palestinians]" (Swedish: "För att kunna beskriva konflikten ärligt måste man ta part med den svagare sidan.")[7]
Controversies
The mainstream Swedish media are normally accused of not showing the Bombings in Sweden in their daily news, they excuse this as this would bring a feeling contrary to the Swedish immigration policy.[8]
Ideological and political bias in reporting
The reporting in Swedish media has sometimes, by journalists, been accused of bias and cover-ups, in particular as regards Swedish immigration policy and the societal and financial costs associated with it.[9] Criticism has focused on accusations that those in the media who shape public opinion often do this based on ideological constructs and exhibit a lack of awareness of current societal problems, often pointing to the fact that journalists and editors predominantly reside in segregated low-risk upper middle-class areas.[9] Well-known Swedish journalists have echoed criticism regarding cover-ups, with Janne Josefsson calling it "one of the worst betrayals we journalists have made ourselves guilty of"("ett av de värsta sveken vi journalister gjort oss skyldiga till").[10] He also notes that critics were unjustifiably silenced through racism allegations.[11] A former high-profile News-presenter of the Swedish State Television resigned her position and made a public statement that she did so due to the bias in State TV news-reporting and the belittling and racism accusations launched at critics.[12]
In April 2005, Andreas Carlgren from the Center Party published a report saying that the State Media are politically biased through direct political control, predominantly by the Social Democratic party. He accused the Social Democrats of having a long-term party policy to fill strategically important positions in the public-service media with persons loyal to the party.[13] This has resulted in media-reporting being susceptible to being directed by political considerations.[14]
In December 2010, the ruling Centre-Right Alliance was heavily criticized when they implemented a law that required that all new public service products needed to be pre-approved by the government before they could be approved. Mats Svegfors, the CEO of the Swedish public service radio channels called this "unconstitutional".[15]
In June 2014, Norrköpings Tidningar published a story on genital mutilation,[16] which was picked up by the foreign press, including The Independent and The Daily News. It was claimed that every single girl in one school class had been victims of genital mutilation.[17][18] None of the newspapers said where and when the genital mutilation took place.[19] It was later published by Sweden's national public radio that none of the girls had been subjected to the procedure, or had any procedure performed on them abroad, while living in Sweden.[20][21]
Sveriges Television AB, Sweden's Television, is the Swedish national public television broadcaster, funded by a public service tax on personal income set by the Riksdag. Prior to 2019, SVT was funded by a television licence fee payable by all owners of television sets. The Swedish public broadcasting system is largely modeled after the system used in the United Kingdom, and Sveriges Television shares many traits with its British counterpart, the BBC.
TV4 AB is a Swedish media company owned by Bonnier Broadcasting Group. The company owns the largest commercial television channel in Sweden, TV4.
SVT1 is the primary television station of the Swedish public service broadcaster Sveriges Television in Sweden.
Viasat is a satellite and pay television brand, co-owned by the Swedish media group Nordic Entertainment Group (NENT) in the Nordic countries, Sony Pictures Television in Hungary, and by Viasat World internationally. Founded in Sweden in 1991, Viasat has previously been owned by Modern Times Group. The channels of both companies are broadcast from London.
Otto Lennart Hyland, was a Swedish TV-show host and journalist and one of the most popular and renowned TV personalities in the history of Swedish television. His biggest success as an entertainer was unquestionably the show Hylands hörna, that aired from 1962 on Sveriges Television.
Jan Olof Scherman is a Swedish journalist and previously CEO for the Sweden-based TV company TV4 AB. He is active in political debate and was a major critic of the Göran Persson cabinet. He is also second cousin of the recording artist Cat Stevens.
TV4 is a Swedish free-to-air television network owned by TV4 AB, a subsidiary of the Bonnier Broadcasting Group. It started broadcasting by satellite in 1990 and, since 1992, on terrestrial television. In 1994, TV4 became the largest channel and remained so for a number of years. The two channels of Sveriges Television (SVT) lost more and more viewers for a couple of years. After making schedule changes in 2001, SVT1 had practically the same numbers of viewers as TV4. From 2004 to 2019, the TV4 Group was a fully active member of the European Broadcasting Union.
The European Broadcasting Area (EBA) is defined by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) as such:
Telia Digital TV is an IPTV distribution platform in Sweden owned by Telia Company. It was launched in January 2005 from a few locations.
Television in Sweden began in Sweden in 1954 with the first test transmissions, prior to the opening of the first station, Radiotjänst, two years later. A second channel was launched in 1969. Commercial television arrived in the 1980s through cable television and in 1992, the country's first terrestrial commercial channel was launched.
Comedy Central in Sweden was a television channel owned by ViacomCBS Networks EMEAA, broadcasting to Sweden. Viacom International Media Networks have said that the channel will feature both original Swedish productions made for the channel and imported content.
Bengt Walter Feldreich was a Swedish radio and television journalist, TV-producer and television presenter. He worked for public service between 1950 until 1985, amongst others the show "Snillen spekulerar" on SVT, the annual Christmas Eve broadcasts from the same channel.
The Swedish Press and Broadcasting Authority is a Swedish administrative authority organized under the Ministry of Culture. The Swedish Press and Broadcasting Authority decides on permits, fees and registration for terrestrial television, community and commercial radio; and monitor radio and television programme services, on-demand services and teletext, to verify that the content of radio and television programmes adhere to broadcasting regulations. The Swedish Broadcasting Commission, a decision-making body within the authority, investigate if the content adheres to regulations, after complaints lodged by viewers and listeners, or at the initiative of the Swedish Press and Broadcasting Authority. Additional tasks include verifying that cable companies and IPTV providers retransmit SVT, and that the broadcasting companies are licensed and managed in accordance with Swedish legislation.
Hanna Lovisa Stjärne is a Swedish journalist and media executive. In September 2014 she was announced as the new CEO for Sveriges Television (SVT), succeeding the resigning CEO Eva Hamilton.
Anna Birgitta Bråkenhielm, during a period of time Anna Carrfors Bråkenhielm, is a Swedish business leader and producer of television programming. She was also owner and CEO of the magazine Passion for Business and presented the radio show Sommar i P1.
Sweden participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 with the song "If I Were Sorry" written by Oscar Fogelström, Michael Saxell, Fredrik Andersson and Frans Jeppsson-Wall. The song was performed by Frans. In addition to participating in the contest, the Swedish broadcaster Sveriges Television (SVT) also hosted the Eurovision Song Contest after winning the competition in 2015 with the song "Heroes" performed by Måns Zelmerlöw. SVT organised the national final Melodifestivalen 2016 in order to select the Swedish entry for the 2016 contest in Stockholm. After a six-week-long competition consisting of four semi-finals, a Second Chance round and a final, "If I Were Sorry" performed by Frans emerged as the winner after achieving the highest score following the combination of votes from eleven international jury groups and a public vote.
Casten Åke Loritz Almqvist,, is a Swedish CEO for the TV4-group consisting of the channels owned by TV4. He has that position since 2011. He graduated from Journalisthögskolan in Stockholm in 1986. He started working for Bonnier in 2008, he then became CEO of Bonnier Business Press and later Dagens Industri. He is a member of the board for C More, Nyhetsbolaget and the Finnish media group MTV3 and MTV Media.
Henrik Siewert Natanael Öholm was a Swedish journalist, television presenter and debater. He represented a socially conservative viewpoint and spent part of his career with Christian media.
John Knut Chrispinsson was a Swedish journalist, author and television presenter. He worked mostly in TV and radio with news programmes and historical programmes. Chrispinsson also wrote several books on Swedish history.
↑ Kenneth E. Olson (1966), The history makers: The press of Europe from its beginnings through 1965, Louisiana State University (LSU) Press, pp 33-49, ISBN1125805889, ISBN978-1125805886, ASIN B000PZN7VY.
↑ Richard Orange; Alexandra Topping (27 June 2014). "FGM specialist calls for gynaecological checks for all girls in Sweden". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 October 2014. The pilot in Norrköping, which grabbed headlines when it was wrongly reported that an entire school class of girls had been subjected to FGM, 28 in the most severe fashion [...] Sweden was the first country in the world to ban FGM in 1982, and in 1999 the ban was extended to include circumcision carried out in other countries.
Kenneth E. Olson (1966), The history makers: The press of Europe from its beginnings through 1965, Louisiana State University (LSU) Press, pp 33–49, ISBN1125805889, ISBN978-1125805886, ASIN B000PZN7VY.
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