Bonnier Takes Half of Sweden's Press Subsidy - Despite Record Profit

STOCKHOLM - In just over two decades, Bonnier has gone from owning almost no local newspapers to controlling the local press in 129 Swedish municipalities. Now nearly half of Sweden's state media subsidy goes to newspaper companies the media giant owns or co-owns - while the group posts record profits and pays hundreds of millions to its owners.

In 2000, Bonnier was the dominant newspaper owner in 36 Swedish municipalities. Today the figure is 129, close to 45 percent of the country's municipalities. The shift was mapped in a review by the trade magazine Journalisten, later picked up by Kvartal.

Media researcher Jonas Ohlsson calls the concentration historically unique.

"From owning almost no local papers at all, they now own half of local-newspaper Sweden. That kind of concentration of titles in a single owner has no precedent in Swedish history," he told Journalisten.

Almost Every Second Subsidy Krona

Ownership is only half the story. In 2025, Bonnier's wholly owned newspapers, including the free-sheet group Mitt i, received close to 273 million kronor in state media support. That is roughly a third of the total, excluding distribution support.

Bonnier is also a part-owner of Gota Media and Erna Media, which were awarded 64 million and 58 million kronor respectively in the same year.

Add them together and the total is just over 395 million kronor, or nearly 48 percent of all the support. Almost every second krona the Swedish state sets aside for the press ends up at a company where Bonnier has an ownership stake.

Record Profit, Big Dividends

The numbers stand out against Bonnier's own results. Bonnier News reported a record profit of 1,080 million kronor for 2025, the highest in the company's history and almost a quarter of a billion more than the year before.

Even the local newspaper arm, Bonnier News Local, is now comfortably in the black. Its profit rose from 75 million kronor in 2024 to 261 million in 2025.

In 2026 Bonnier Group also decided on a 459 million kronor dividend to its owners. The payout covers the whole group, which has large businesses outside newspapers, but together with the record profit it raises an obvious question: why should a financially strong media empire collect such a large share of taxpayer-funded press support?

"Deeply Strange"

Former TV4 chief executive Jan Scherman is among the critics. He says Sweden barely debates who owns its media.

"I think it is both worrying and deeply strange that we in Sweden are not having a discussion about media ownership," he told Journalisten.

Scherman is also critical of the state handing such large sums to a group that already dominates the market. When more and more local titles sit under one owner, the number of mastheads no longer reflects real diversity in ownership or editorial control.

Bonnier: We Saved Local Journalism

Bonnier defends the expansion by saying its acquisitions kept papers alive that would otherwise have closed. Bonnier Group CEO Erik Hägerstrand argues that many local titles operate in markets where the economics barely work, and that being part of a larger group lets them share resources and keep reporting.

Ohlsson agrees that Bonnier's purchase of the struggling Mittmedia group may have saved a large number of local papers, though he notes nobody can know whether another owner could have done the same.

Svenska Dagbladet Was Turned Down

The subsidy system has been criticised before. When Samnytt examined Bonnier's record profits in February, Svenska Dagbladet editor-in-chief Lisa Irenius described how her paper, once one of the biggest recipients of press support, was refused editorial support under the new system introduced in January 2024 - because it was profitable.

"Bonnier's local papers get a great deal of media support while they are profitable. But Svenska Dagbladet has not been granted support, on the grounds that we are profitable," she told Samnytt.

Irenius instead wants zero VAT on news media, a model she says would treat every outlet the same and be far more predictable than having a government agency decide which individual newspapers get money and how much.

The state media subsidy is justified as a way to protect a diversity of news outlets and secure local journalism across the country. But when close to half of it flows to companies within one ownership sphere, while that group books record profits, critics ask whether the system is protecting diversity at all - or simply cementing the position of the strongest player in the market.