MediaOwnership and Content: Corporatization of the Finnish Media in 1990's
by Juha Herkman (2004)

It has not been very popular to consider ownership's impacts on media content after the so called linguistic or discursive turn in the 1980s media research. Majority of media research has focused on textual and discourse analysis and qualitative methods ever since. Cultural studies have also provided an influential paradigm for recent media research emphasising "active audiences", processes of reception and "empowering" or "affective" meanings for media uses.

In the 1960s and 1970s political economy of media raised different kinds of questions about media ownership and the political and economical roles of the media. Political economy was a part of the larger wave of Marxian theorizations penetrating the whole range of social sciences, as well as humanities. According to the main argument of Marxian political economists the economic base constitutes the superstructure of media, i.e. media ownership is linked to societal power and this power block somehow governs the construction of media content in terms of its commercial and ideological interests (see Curran & al. 1982, 18, 25-26).

Vincent Mosco (1996, 82nn) separates two traditions in political economy of mass communication. The North American tradition was pioneered by Dallas Smythe and Herbert I. Schiller, whose studies in American and Canadian economic structures and their relation to mass media were celebrated as turning points of political economy of the media in the 1960s (see e.g. Smythe 1957; 1977; Schiller 1969; 1973). European tradition was mainly culminated in the writings of Peter Golding and Graham Murdock, who worked at the Centre for Mass Communication Research at the University of Leicester in the1970s (see e.g. Murdock & Golding 1974; Golding & Murdock 1979).

As a starting point, the political economy of media considers media as any other business branch. Especially American mass media has been organized according to commercial principles from the very beginning. As Douglas Gomery (1989, 43-44) puts it: "It is commonplace to assert that the production, distribution, and presentation of the mass media in America involve vast sums of money, and thus no research in mass communication can be complete unless questions of economic influence are addressed." It is notable that even though there has been a strong tradition of public service broadcasting (PSB) and nationally/politically financed press in many European countries, also European media is nowadays more and more often organized to follow the commercial model - and even if mass media production is not commercially financed it is yet economic activity costing huge amounts of money.

But political economists reminded that "in addition to producing and distributing commodities, however, the mass media also disseminate ideas about economic and political structures. It is this second and ideological dimension of mass media production which gives it its importance and centrality and which requires an approach in terms not only of economics but also of politics" (Murdock & Golding 1974, 206-207). So, it is important to understand that mass media is both similar to any other business, but it is also different in the sense that it plays a central role as an information, entertainment and ideological apparatus of any society. Mass media is part of cultural industries (see Golding & Murdock 1991, 15).

The central role of mass media in constructing and distributing culture has led some political economists to conclusions somehow reminding the cultural pessimism of the Frankfurt School intellectuals (Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse) in the 1940s and 1950s. The attitude is prominent, for example in Edward S. Herman's and Noam Chomsky's famous "propaganda model" introduced in their book Manufacturing Consent. The Political Economy of the Mass Media in 1988. According to Herman and Chomsky (1988, 2), "a propaganda model focuses on this inequality of wealth and power as its multilevel effects on mass-media interests and choices. It traces the routes by which money and power are able to filter out the news fit to print, marginalize dissent, and allow the government and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public".

Herman and Chomsky claim that the mainstream American mass media works ideologically for economical and political power elite and therefore prevents dissent. It supports the power block through five news "filters": (1) concentrated ownership and profit orientation of the dominant mass media firms, (2) advertising as the primary income source of the mass media, (3) the reliance of the media on information provided by societal power block of government, business and "experts", (4) disciplining the media by "flak", and (5) "anticommunism" as a national religion and control mechanism (ibid., 2-31). The propaganda model has been quite popular among students of communication studies but it has also been extensively criticized in public and by scholars as well.

There are certainly several problems in Herman's and Chomsky's model and it appears oversimplified. It has, for example, been accused to evoke suspicions of some kind of a conspiracy (Entman 1990, 126). More concrete critique of the propaganda model claims that the model does not understand how media professionals, journalists, actually do their jobs (Hallin 1994). It has also been said that the model fails to explain the controversy of the media: it is too mechanical and functionalist to explain the multiple relations of society, economy and the media. According to Golding and Murdock (1991, 19), Herman and Chomsky "overlook the contradictions in the system. Owners, advertisers and key political personnel cannot always do so as they would wish".

Herman and Chomsky have responded to the critique in several writings, their main argument being that the critics have misunderstood the central point of the model: the model is not about journalists' real work or actual interaction between owners and the media but an analyse of the American mass media on a more structural and organizational level. "The propaganda model explains media behavior and performance in structural terms… [--] the rooting of corporate behavior and performance in structure is the core of modern industrial organization analysis" (Herman 2000, 105). But this explanation does not completely resolve all the problems of the model. It is problematic to insist that the model is true on a structural level if empirical evidence proves that media content is not so unified and untested as the model implies. It is also important to understand the media as a part of national, cultural and economic contexts. So, the model does not certainly fit everywhere and every time. For example, the fifth "filter" (anticommunism) has different meanings after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war period also in America.

Same kind of arguments have been central in more general critiques against political economy as well. 1970s political economy of media has often been seen as over theoretical and over essentialistic in its way to reduce the media into economic base and class structures (see Mosco 1996, 161). As Peter Dahlgren (1992, 3) puts it: "… the standpoint of neo-Marxian political economy [--] … raised such issues as those of ownership and its implications for journalism, though they often left unclear the precise nature of the link between ownership and daily journalistic practises". Political economy was not too much interested in audiences, reception and consuming the media either, and that is why textual and audience analysis powerfully challenged it in the 1980s. After the decline of the Soviet Union and other European communist societies in the beginning of the 1990s it has been clear that neo-Marxian theories have not been very trendy in the academic field. Actually, as Gene Costain and James F. Tracy (2001, 203-204) note, "in some circles the political economy of communication is dismissed as 'reductionist' or 'vulgar'".

Why do we need political economy of the media?

Political economy has not been institutionalised at academic forums but rather remained as a project of some individual scholars (see Mosco 1996). Political economy has not been in the very core of media research since 1970s - on the contrary, it has directed itself against the orthodox mainstream media research. In spite of its marginality in the field of media research, there however emerged some new interest in political economy of the media in early 1990s (Gandy 1992, 23). This interest has recently further increased, at least if we look at the several text books on political media economy published between 1995-2002 (e.g. Mosco 1996; Croteau & Hoynes 2001; Doyle 2002). There are some concrete reasons for this new political economy debates in media research. Firstly, concentration of media ownership changed global and national power relations of various media during the 1990s and early 2000s, especially because of the development of digital technology and deregulation policies of the media. Secondly, popular media research paradigms like textual analysis and cultural studies were criticized more often than before for ignoring these changes.

Concentration of media ownership is an old phenomenon. News agencies Havas (Paris), Wolff (Berlin) and Reuters (London) "divided the world up so that each could have its own colony of knowledge" as early as 1869 (Fiske 1993, 158). This was also criticized. For example Honoré de Balzac criticized Havas' monopoly on French wire service copy because "it led to a decline in information sources" (Mosco 1996, 175). Since that there has been almost continuous debates over media concentration and its influences. During 1990s concentration got a new kind of global scale and unseen forms which awaked political economists again (see Herman & McChesney 1997).

There has been an increasing trend toward cross-media ownership since the 1960s. In the 1990s this trend exploded into global level so that in 2001 there where only seven giant media conglomerates governing global media markets: AOL Time Warner, Viacom, Vivendi Universal, The Walt Disney Company, Bertelsmann, News Corporation and Sony Corporation. These corporations cover as well print media as broadcasting, music and cinema businesses (see Finnish Mass Media 2002, 341). So, concentration of ownership is often nowadays horizontal - it crosses different media - and international - conglomerates operate on global markets. The gigantic merger of America Online (AOL) and Time Warner in the beginning of 2000 was the most striking example of horizontal cross-media concentration. Anthony Smith (1991) has called these kinds of multinational and multi-industrial conglomerates as "behemoths".

Graham Murdock (1990, 2) sees, that "two processes have been particularly important in restructuring the corporate playing field: technological innovation and 'privatization'. The 'digital revolution' which allows voice, sound, text, data and images to be stored and transmitted using the same basic technologies opens up a range of possibilities for new kinds of activity and for novel forms of convergence and interplay with media sectors." So, the digital convergence has highlighted also ownership convergence because digitalisation has been one of the key projects for media companies seeking their ways to rationalize the production and distribution of media content; so to speak, to minimize their costs. For the very first time in media history digital technology makes the circulation of the same material from one medium to another really easy (see Murdock 2000).

The symbiosis of technological and economical convergence has been one of the main strategies of the 21st century's media companies. The target in converging technology and concentrating ownership is to increase synergy between corporation's different media branches. According to David Croteau and Willam Hoynes (2001, 116) "maximizing synergy [--] is taking advantage of multiple media holdings to develop or promote a single project with many different facets. [--] … media conglomerates seek to maximize the benefits they can obtain from owning many different media firms." Synergy means, therefore, efforts to seek multiple ways to cross-media co-operation in media production and marketing (ibid., 116-117). The most distinguishable way of cross-marketing is to advertise corporation's products in its different mediums. Nowadays cross-marketing, however, means more and more often indirect cross-promotion; i.e. interviews, stories, documents, news and product placements of company's media products in its multiple mediums (see Turow 1992). A good example is The Disney Company which has profited from cross-media synergy strategies for several decades (Wasko 2001, 36, 70-81, 103nn).

It is therefore obvious that the concentration of media ownership has impact on media content. As Ben Bagdikian (1983/1997) writes: "… in modern times actual conspiracy is not necessary. The absence of conspiracy, however, does not mean that large media corporations lack power or fail to use it in unified way. They have shared values. Those values are reflected in the emphasis of their news and popular culture." The most important value is "the market value" - or "the value of the market" - which undoubtedly frames all commercial media production. Commercial media is responsible for stockholders who put pressure for producing contents that are popular or, at least, please advertisers. "While claims of direct censorship can often be denied or possibly substantiated in some situations, it is still difficult to separate editorial policies from ownership connections, no matter who makes the decisions" (Wasko 2001, 83).

The most concrete ownership response to media are reorganizations of companies, dismissing workers, or financing certain branches and not the others. We have seen hundreds of these kinds of "organization reforms" in media companies during the 1990s and in the beginning of the 21st century. Many of these changes have been made in the name of convergence. Self-evidently there have been just a small number of people who've got the power to make these decisions. For example, Disney Company has branded itself as some kind of charity organization that benefits whole U.S. and represents "good American values" of "family", "childhood", "innocence", "happiness" and "fun". Every American is a potential Disney stockholder. But as Wasko (2001, 39) notes: "Of course, it is possible that many of the 588,000 shareholders benefit handsomely from their holdings in the Disney Company… [--] However, some of Disney's stockholders benefit more than others, and only a few have the potential for controlling the corporation's decision making process due to their ownership of large blocks of stocks."

In spite of increasing cross-media concentration and converging media production a vast majority of media research has been focused on analysing media texts and their uses. Concentration on textual and cultural analysis and forgetting the economic base of the media at the same time can be a real problem. As Golding and Murdock (1991, 17) remind us: "… cultural studies offer an analysis of the way the cultural industries work that has little or nothing to say about how they actually operate as industries, and how their economic organization impinges on the production and circulation of meaning." Precisely because of this Costain and Tracy (2001, 203) provoke in their introduction to the Journal of Communication Inquiry's special issue of political economy: "… wake up and get your noses out of the study of texts; [--] … get back to a whole way of life that includes the political economy of communication."

There has been some efforts to broke the gap between political economy and cultural studies of media. Especially Paul du Gay (1997) has introduced ideas of economy as part of cultural production and culture as part of economic activities. His task is to study "the circuit of culture" that includes analysis of cultural production, consumption and regulation as well as questions of representations and identities. The study of Sony Walkman's cultural circulation is an example of this kind of analysis in practise (du Gay & al. 1997). Keith Negus' studies on popular music industries are another example of cultural analysis that do not forget the economics of cultural production and consumption (e.g. Negus 1999). Some political economists have also been interested in combining cultural analysis to the political economy of media. For example, Janet Wasko's studies on Disney combine all kinds of analysis to produce an overall understanding of the Disney phenomenon (see Wasko 2001), and Vincent Mosco has developed a more unessentialistic model of political economy: Mosco (1996) considers society still as a systemic whole but in a way that takes into account mutual interaction between its economical, political, societal and cultural structures. It is really important not to reduce media neither into cultural nor into economical structures but to understand it as cultural industry which is framed by multiple economical and ideological interests that unquestionably have influences also on media content.

Corporatization of the Finnish Media in the 1990s

Until the 1980s Finnish media can be defined as a national project. This does not mean we did not have commercial media or international popular culture before that - on the contrary, there was a symbiosis of commercial and public service television from the very beginning of the television programming in late 1950s, and American and European film, television and popular music industries have had an enormous impact on Finnish media environment for several decades. But the mass media - mainly press, radio and television - was still a part of the national welfare society project.

In the 1980s new winds begun to blow and Finland opened itself to "free global markets". Sociologist Pertti Alasuutari (1996) has described this change as a transition from the "economy of state system" to "economy of competition". Since the 1980s the state has had much less power than before in many societal sectors. Lot of that power has shifted to the so called market forces. This has had many consequences to media and mass communication. In 1985 Yleisradio's public service radio monopoly was broken as commercial radio was introduced to Finnish listeners. In a context of television we used to have a duopoly of PSB (Yleisradio) and commercial television (Mainos-TV) which hired programme time from Yleisradio's channels. "This dual structure was changed in 1993 as MTV Finland got its own operating license as well as channel. This third national channel was called MTV3. The new third channel continued operating a transmission network that was originally launched in 1987 as a joint venture between YLE, MTV and already rapidly growing Nokia company." (Hujanen 2002, 14.)

It was also in the 1980s when the first satellite and cable channels came into Finland. At the same time many of those newspapers formerly financed by political parties and the state were privatised or closed down. New kind of commercially financed papers were introduced for the readers instead (e.g. City). The 1980s were, then, a period of great commercialisation of Finnish media, but it was not until the 1990s when this commercialisation changed radically the economic and political structures of the Finnish media field. "The Big Channel Reform" in 1993 made a commercial television channel (MTV3) first time a real competitor to PSB-system (Yleisradio). In 1997 this competition was complicated by launching the second commercial and at the same time fourth national television channel Nelonen (Channel Four). (See Hellman 1999; Hujanen 2002, 14-21.)

Launching Nelonen was the first step in corporatization of Finnish media. Nelonen was owned by Ruutunelonen that was a holding company of Sanoma Osakeyhtiö's Helsinki Media division. Sanoma Osakeyhtiö owns the largest Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. It was, then, the first time a private media company owned both newspapers and a national television channel in Finland. In 1997 MTV3 and the second largest newspaper company in Finland, Aamulehti Oy, announced that they will merge into a company that will be named Alma Media. Alma Media started officially in 1998 with five divisions: Alpress publishes newspapers (e.g. Aamulehti, Iltalehti, Satakunnan kansa, Lapin kansa), Broadcasting takes care of commercial television and radio (e.g. MTV3, Subtv, Radio Nova), Business Information Group offers business services (e.g. Kauppalehti), Alma Media Interactive produces company's Internet- and online-services and Alprint runs a couple of printing houses. One of Alma Media's major stockholders is Swedish Bonnier, the largest media corporation in the Nordic Countries up to the year 2001. In proposition to this Alma Media owns remarkable percentage of the Swedish television channel TV4. In 2003 Alma Media Interactive and Alprint merged into Media Services division, cutting the total number of Alma Media divisions down to four. ( http://www.almamedia.fi/businesses )

It was also in 1997 when Sanoma Osakeyhtiö, Helsinki Media and book publisher WSOY announced to merge into Sanoma-WSOY corporation. Sanoma-WSOY's first complete year of operation was 1999 and it also had five divisions: Sanoma Osakeyhtiö publishes newspapers (e.g. Helsingin Sanomat, Ilta-Sanomat) and produces business-services (e.g. Taloussanomat), WSOY publishes books, Sanoma Magazines publishes weekly and monthly magazines (e.g. Aku Ankka), SWelcom takes care of television broadcasting (e.g. Nelonen, HTV) and Internet-services and Rautakirja runs other businesses like R-kiosks, book stores (Suomalainen kirjakauppa), film distributing (Finnkino Oy) and even owns holdings of Pizza Hut and Motorests in Finland. Sanoma-WSOY has also bought many media companies abroad (e.g. Docendo Läromedel in Sweden and VNU in Netherlands). Since 2001 Sanoma-WSOY has been the largest media corporation in the Nordic Countries. ( http://www.sanomawsoy.fi/aboutus/ )

Table 1: Branches and holdings of Sanoma-WSOY and Alma Media 1.1.2003

In 1997 Finnish commercial media ownership first time ever concentrated horizontally into two major corporations Sanoma-WSOY and Alma Media. In 2001 these two corporations governed the majority of all commercial mass media in Finland: their net revenue was more than twice the net revenue of the ten next largest companies together, i.e. more than 2,2 billion euros (Sanoma-WSOY 1,73 billion euros and Alma Media 0,48 billion euros) (see Finnish Mass Media 2002, 94). Commercial competition turned Finnish mass media from a national project into marketized mode which reforms also the organization of Yleisradio: "Increased channel competition is linked with a major transformation process in public service television that can be described as a change from broadcasting as a national institution to a cultural industry" (Hujanen 2002, 24). The same can be said about the telecommunications sector, too. Thanks for deregulation policies of the European Union and Finnish government, the whole telecommunication sector is nowadays privatised - which was not the situation in the 1980s. Because of these changes in the Finnish media environment there may be a stronger need for analysis of political economy of the media than ever.

How does corporatization impact on media content?

As discussed above, commercialisation and corporatization of Finnish media have brought along great influences on organisational level: they have been the main reason for organisation reforms in Yleisradio and MTV3, for example. The impact on media content is less clear. Some critics have claimed that concentration of media ownership and corporatization have no effects on content at all, because journalists themselves make decisions almost without any control (e.g. Jakobson 1999: see also Hallin 1994). These critics emphasise the professionalism of journalists and the democratic role of the stock markets.

It is clear that journalists are not as self-dependent as sometimes is argued: there are control mechanisms and journalistic routines that frame their work (see e.g. Tuchman 1978; McQuail 1994). And as it was earlier proved by multiple research examples, it is also self-evident that ownership somehow shapes media content. This is so because of the fact that commercial media corporations are profit making companies responsible for their stockholders. There is a continuous pressure towards larger profits, and this pressure cannot leave media content as "no man's land" (see Murdock 1982, 135). The main target in horizontal concentration is to increase synergy between different mediums, and that is the case also with Sanoma-WSOY and Alma Media. The most explicit area of this kind of synergy is, of course, cross-advertising on corporation's mediums.

A good example is book advertising. Books are typical cultural products, the sales of which are easily counted by the number of books sold. Nowadays selling books depends quite heavily on the overall publicity books and authors get in popular media. According to international comparisons Finnish people still read a lot, both papers and books. There is also evidence that those who read much like to read different kinds of texts in different kinds of mediums. (See e.g. Drok 1998.) So, it is assumable that papers and magazines with lots of readers make good advertising channels for books.

Helsingin Sanomat is the largest newspaper in Finland with a circulation of 446 380 (in 2001). It has more than one million readers - 1,15 million readers in 2001, more than one fifth of the total population - and a status as a leading quality paper of the country. (Finnish Mass Media 2002, 274.) It is therefore understandable that Helsingin Sanomat is one of the major channels for book marketing in Finland. December is the most important month for book sales because of Christmas. In December 2002 two thirds (13/21) of full page book advertisements on Helsingin Sanomat was about Sanoma-WSOY's books (see figure 1.). All (seven) colour advertisements were about Sanoma-WSOY's books (WSOY, Docendo, EverScreen), other full page advertisements were black and white. It is a remarkable number of advertisements considering how expensive a full page is in Helsingin Sanomat: 12.2.2003 a full page (four colour) advertisement in Helsingin Sanomat cost from 21 000 euros to 31 000 euros depending on its location in the paper.

Figure 1: Book advertisements in Helsingin Sanomat

WSOY is the largest publishing house in Finland and uses therefore more money for marketing than other publishers. But, still, its proportion of Helsingin Sanomat's book advertising is larger than its market share compared to other publishers. Correlation between book advertising and corporation comes clear if we look at Aamulehti in December 2002 as well: Aamulehti published only one advertisement by a book publisher (WSOY) during the whole month. In Aamulehti books were advertised along department store and shopping mall ads. Alma Media does not publish books, so there is no direct link between a book publisher and a quality paper, although Alma Media's major stock holder Bonnier also owns a large share of the Finnish publisher Tammi.

Cross-advertising is common in all Alma Media and Sanoma-WSOY mediums. Nelonen advertises often its programmes in Helsingin Sanomat and Ilta-Sanomat, while MTV3 advertises often in Iltalehti and Radio Nova. In December 2002 Helsingin Sanomat published also advertisements of Sanoma Magazine, HTV, Ilta-Sanomat and Finnkino. It is therefore one of the most important channels for Sanoma-WSOY-advertising.

During the period Sept 1st 1996 - April 30th 2001 the popular evening papers (tabloids) Iltalehti and Ilta-Sanomat published mostly advertisements about television channels of same corporation. I checked every fifth paper from the period, and in those papers Iltalehti published 117 advertisements about MTV3 and only 12 advertisements about Nelonen. In turn Ilta-Sanomat published 33 advertisements about Nelonen and only 13 advertisements about MTV3. (See figure 2.) Even though Iltalehti advertised much more about television in general, correlation between ownership and advertising was clear. The same correlation can be seen in cross-advertising papers on television, television on radio and papers and television on movie theatres. Cross-advertising is a strategy for corporation synergy that benefits its every branch. Iltalehti's editor in chief Pauli Aalto-Setälä told March 13th 2003 that corporation discounts for advertisements are "remarkable". It is also easy to "exchange" advertisements between corporation's different mediums.

Figure 2: Television advertisements in popular papers 1.9.1996-30.1.2001

There has also been several cross-productions where ownership impacts rather on editorial content than on advertising. One of the earliest projects was Iltalehti's and MTV3's co-production Jyrki - a music video show on MTV3 and popular culture pages on Iltalehti. Jyrki was discontinued in 2000 but since that there has been other cross-productions between MTV3 and Iltalehti, for example Helmi, television programme (MTV3), radio programme (Radio Nova), Web- and text-television pages and pages on Iltalehti addressed especially to women.

Nowadays it is, however, common to use more subtle cross-promotion strategies (see Turow 1992, 694). Television channels MTV3 and Nelonen have introduced their own versions of reality television format Robinson (Sweden): Suuri Seikkailu (The Great Adventure, MTV3) and Saari (The Island, Nelonen). These reality shows were promoted quite explicitly on corporations' popular papers Iltalehti and Ilta-Sanomat in 2002 and 2003 by interviews, human interest stories and other puffers.

In my research on Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti came out that since launching Nelonen in 1997 these popular papers have quite differently constructed publicity for MTV3 and Nelonen. There were no significant differences in news and television critiques of Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti, but posters, front pages and entertainment or "glamour" pages quite obviously promoted corporation's own television channel at competitor's expense in 1997-2001. It is interesting that this promotion has become a part of Ilta-Sanomat's and Iltalehti's form. For example, Subtv and Nelonen are nowadays printed as equally valuated channels on Iltalehti's television pages, but on Ilta-Sanomat Subtv is not noticed as valuable as the four national channels YLE1, YLE2, MTV3 and Nelonen (see pictures 1 and 2). There is no need to mention that even though Nelonen is a national channel its target audience segment - urban young people - is much more similar with Subtv than, for example, with MTV3, that is usually considered as a general channel like YLE1 and YLE2.

Picture 1: TV schedule in Ilta-Sanomat Picture 2: TV schedule in Iltalehti

There has been increasing concern about cross-promotion's impact on editorial content, especially on news: "The rise of synergy-oriented conglomerates that carry both news and entertainment divisions under their umbrellas has raised the strong possibility that the long-standing tradition separating news from marketing and entertainment is in danger braking down" (Turow 1992, 702). If we do not take into account lively debates on the so called tabloidization (see Sparks & Tulloch 2000), there is not so much evidence about cross-promotion effects on news in Finnish media. But there can be found some exceptions, too.

News reporting the economic successes of these two media companies provide some evidence. For example, November 6th 2003 Aamulehti headlined the news about Alma Media's returns: "Regional newspapers increased the returns of Alma Media". Helsingin Sanomat headlined its story about the same issue: "MTV has lost some of its share of television advertising to Nelonen". Even though Alma Media's net revenue was slightly decreased, Aamulehti's story was positive in tone. A lot of energy was used to indicate success in corporation's certain divisions. In Helsingin Sanomat the tone was much more negative. The story was also shorter. Rock star Ozzy Osbourne's four wheeler accident in December 2003 makes another fine example. The accident got extensive coverage on Nelonen TV news while other channels didn't bother at all. The Nelonen news reminded even of The Osbournes show, running on the same channel. These are just two of many examples of how ownership might have an influence on editorial content.

The critical question, then, is: what does this kind of development do to the credibility and diversity of the media? So far situation in Finland has been quite decent. Actually there may be a more diversified media environment in Finland than ever, and there certainly still is quite a strong separation of "quality" news material from entertainment and promotion material. But market competition pushes mainstream media harder and harder towards commercialised practises, and there is no evidence that this competition would guarantee any diversity of media content. On the contrary, as Thomas Gibbons (1999, 168) writes: "There is an underlying assumption that, when competition (eventually) produces diversity of source, that will lead to diversity of content for the audience. Thus far, the evidence suggests that it is more likely that there will be a tendency to the mean, with competitors targeting the same, large audiences with similar products." Jan van Cuilenburg (2000, 75-76) proves by empirical examples from the Netherlands that "extremely competitive markets tend to homogeneity" because "fierce competition enchases competition on price" and "moderate competition in competition on content rather than on price". The competition of two Finnish popular papers Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti demonstrates this explicitly. They are so similar that the only remarkable difference between them might be their tendency to cross-promote Alma Media's and Sanoma-WSOY's productions.

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