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Roundup: Finnish media sector restores profitability

Xinhua, July 28, 2016 Adjust font size:

After years of cost cutbacks and layoffs, the Finnish media sector has reported positive trends.

The country's leading commercial media house Sanoma announced on Wednesday a 75 percent increase in its operating profit compared with the situation a year ago.

Sanoma's CEO Susan Duinhoven said on Wednesday that company's media operations in Finland were the biggest single factor behind the increased profitability. She attributed the turnaround to strict cost control and increased advertising sales.

Sanoma is the owner of Helsingin Sanomat, the largest newspaper in Finland. It has other newspapers, as well as radio and television channels.

Despite the improved profitability, turnover of Sanoma declined 4.1 percent from Q2 last year.

Only last week, another major newspaper house Alma Media said its profit for this year would increase.

Alma Media is the publisher of Tampere-based daily Aamulehti, national evening paper Iltalehti and business daily Kauppalehti. Alma Media's turnover for Q2 this year grew by 26 percent.

The news of the media industry has not been totally positive.

Leading Swedish language media house KSF announced earlier this year major cutbacks due to record loss. It publishes newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet. One of the reasons for KSF's loss was the decline in the Swedish speaking population in southern Finland.

Media in the Swedish speaking communities in Ostrobothnia, central western Finland, has been doing better and the publisher of Vasabladet has been able to turn losses into profits.

The future of the ailing national news agency STT-Lehtikuva looks better following a political intervention last month. An all-party working group said the state-owned national broadcaster Yle should start using the services of STT again.

Yle has not been a client of STT since 2006, as it chose to do news gathering on its own. Talks between Yle and STT have not begun yet, Yle said on Wednesday. Endit