Digitalization of content challenges legacy media products, and contributes to market exit and consolidation across geographical markets. Media market structures are changing continuously and the observation of increasing market concentration is not at all a new one. In Finland, mass media markets have over the last quarter of a century become highly concentrated.  Ala-Fossi et al (to be published in 2022) have presented three reasons for that. First, foreign investments used to be strictly limited in Finland but since the 1990’s the Finnish media policy has not actively aimed at preventing acquisitions or consolidation with any ownership limitations or regulations. Second, indirect tax subsidies i.e. a reduced rate of VAT favouring the largest newspaper publishing companies may have even accelerated ownership concentration of the news media. Third, there is no specific competition legislation for media to prevent ownership concentration or to protect diversity of ownership.

However, there are significant differences between different sector of media in the ownership and ownership structure. The highest degree of concentration can be found in radio broadcasting. At the national level, newspaper ownership is slightly less concentrated than radio or television broadcasting (Ala-Fossi et al., 2020; Manninen & Hjerppe, 2021). et al., 2020; Manninen & Hjerppe, 2021). Nonetheless, it is the newspaper publishing that is presently characterized by frequent mergers and consolidation. Nonetheless, it is the newspaper publishing that is presently characterized by frequent mergers and consolidation. In addition, when assessing the concentration of ownership of newspapers or, more broadly, print news media, one must consider the regional structure of the markets.  Our paper will examine different market and ownership structures of different media sectors in Finland. In all, with our paper we can contribute to the study of media concentration in the context of specific kinds of media systems.