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Denmark’s news media suffer as country’s viewing, reading habits change

Although the general economy in Denmark is strong, the country’s media industry experienced reduced turnover between 2016 and 2017.

Denmark’s news media suffer as country’s viewing, reading habits change
File photo: Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix

The figures, released by the culture ministry’s Agency for Culture and Palaces on Tuesday, show a three percent fall in turnover between 2016 and 2017, from 29.3 billion kroner to 28.5 billion kroner.

Print media such as magazines, daily newspapers, local newspapers and weeklies were hit particularly hard during the period, and even television and streaming experienced a four percent loss of turnover in 2017.

But publishers and radio saw growth during the same period, according to the ministry analysis.

Agency for Culture and Palaces special consultant Anders Sebastian Kauffeldt said that there had been a clear change in media consumption habits in Denmark.

“It is obvious that Danes’ media habits are changing apace. We are reading fewer print newspapers, and more and more of us are using foreign streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, rather than watching television on traditional channels,” Kauffeldt said in a press statement.

“That trend is hitting the media industry particularly hard, and it saw an overall three percent loss of turnover in 2017,” he added.

“Worst-hit were news and current affairs media like daily and local newspapers, which saw a decrease of six percent,” he continued.

The analysis also shows that a relatively small number of Danish and foreign media companies are responsible for the majority of the country’s media turnover.

Two prominent Danish corporations, JP/Politikens Hus and Egmont, constitute 32 percent of the country’s total media takings. Both companies have a turnover of over 1 billion kroner.

Meanwhile, 59 percent of people who work in Denmark’s media industry live within the greater Copenhagen area.

READ ALSO: Danes spend almost one third of the day consuming media: report

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BUSINESS

Google News to return to Spain after seven-year spat

Google announced Wednesday the reopening of its news service in Spain next year after the country amended a law that imposed fees on aggregators such as the US tech giant for using publishers’ content.

Google News to return to Spain after seven-year spat
Google argues its news site drives readers to Spanish newspaper and magazine websites and thus helps them generate advertising revenue.Photo: Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD / AFP

The service closed in Spain in December 2014 after legislation passed requiring web platforms such as Google and Facebook to pay publishers to reproduce content from other websites, including links to their articles that describe a story’s content.

But on Tuesday the Spanish government approved a European Union copyright law that allows third-party online news platforms to negotiate directly with content providers regarding fees.

This means Google no longer has to pay a fee to Spain’s entire media industry and can instead negotiate fees with individual publishers.

Writing in a company blog post on Wednesday, Google Spain country manager Fuencisla Clemares welcomed the government move and announced that as a result “Google News will soon be available once again in Spain”.

“The new copyright law allows Spanish media outlets — big and small — to make their own decisions about how their content can be discovered and how they want to make money with that content,” she added.

“Over the coming months, we will be working with publishers to reach agreements which cover their rights under the new law.”

News outlets struggling with dwindling print subscriptions have long seethed at the failure of Google particularly to pay them a cut of the millions it makes from ads displayed alongside news stories.

Google argues its news site drives readers to newspaper and magazine websites and thus helps them generate advertising revenue and find new subscribers.

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