According to the National Readership Survey, the number of readers of newspapers has remained more or less unchanged.
Although the readership figures of dailies are generally on a slight decline, no statistically significant changes have happened between September 2005 and the spring of 2006, verifies research director Marjo Malik from Taloustutkimus, a privately-owned market research company.
The ranking of the most read newspapers has also remained the same. Finland's largest newspaper is still Helsingin Sanomat with over one million readers, followed by the two late-edition tabloids Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti, the Tampere-based Aamulehti, and Maaseudun Tulevaisuus.
Of these, Iltalehti and Maaseudun Tulevaisuus defy the prevailing downward trend. Both of these have managed to increase their readership from the last survey.
Aamulehti has almost the same number of readers as last year.
The National Readership Survey fails to reveal the number of readers of various newspapers' online editions.
Janne Virkkunen, senior editor-in-chief at Helsingin Sanomat, points out that the number of people reading newspapers on the Internet is growing steadily.
Managing director Ullamaija Arasto from the Finnish Audit Bureau of Circulations explains that for the first time the readership of online editions of newspapers within the scope of the National Readership Survey has also been looked into. The results, however, are not yet publishable.
A positive finding was that young people like to read papers. The 12-19-year-olds follow seven papers on average, two newspapers and five periodicals.
The favourite is Donald Duck, which has a following of over one million readers. The comic magazine, translated into Finnish, reaches 60 per cent of the 12-19-year-olds in the country.
According to the survey the most new readers have been secured by customer magazines.
Finland's largest magazine is still the retailing K-Group's regular free customer magazine Pirkka with nearly 2.5 million readers, followed by the S-Group's Yhteishyvä with 1.6 million readers.
Of the general periodicals, 7 päivää has 925,000 readers, followed by ET (887,000) and Apu (821,000).
The readership figures of many periodicals and women's magazines have dropped some, but both Arasto and Malik are reluctant to draw any conclusions just yet.
"Time will tell if this is a permanent change", Malik concludes.
