Free press, regulated competition

Abstract

This paper examines newspaper cartels, a largely unoccupied field in media history, from the perspective of longevity. We analyse Finnish newspaper industry from the 1910s to 1970s and show that newspapers sought to regulate various aspects of competition, such as subscription prices, advertisement tariffs, and newsprint prices. Data indicates that political rivalry shaped the newspaper cartel collaboration until late 1950s: the cartel was set up by right-wing and centrist papers and, unlike in other Nordic countries, the Social Democratic press remained outside of the association until 1958. Political shocks of the Finnish Civil War in 1918 and the Second World War also changed the composition of the cartel. The era of private cartels in the newspaper industry gradually started to fade away as a result of anti-cartel laws in the 1960s and governmental anti-inflation measures in the 1970s. We conclude that the economics of newspaper industry and the cartelisation of the wider business environment, newsprint suppliers in particular, encouraged newspapers to co-operate with each other. The results of this article increase the understanding on the collaborative and competitive environment of newspaper companies, but also contributes to broader questions on cartels and their inner dynamics.