Social networks
According to the NetTrack 2016 survey by Kantar TNS, 60 percent of Finns would use a computer to access the Internet, if they were allowed to choose just one device. Computers remain popular, even though smartphones and tablets are used by more and more Finns. In the survey, 1,004 Finnish people aged 15-79 were interviewed over the phone in April 2016.
The whole population spends 58 percent of their time on traditional media and 42 percent on online services. With the 30-year-olds, the numbers switch places: online services take 65 percent of the time and the traditional media take 35 percent.
Finns use media daily for 7 hours 33 minutes. Internet penetration in 2016 was 94 percent. With the whole population, television leads in daily media use with 26 percent, second is the traditional radio with 18 percent and the third is social media with 11 percent. With under 30-year-olds, social media has 17 percent, television 16 percent, Internet music streaming 10 percent and other applications 10 percent. With over 50-year-olds, television is at the top with 32 percent, traditional radio at 22 percent and print newspapers and tabloids at nine percent.
According to MediaAuditFinland’s National Readership Survey (NRS) in the spring of 2016, print is still the favourite reading platform for Finns, despite the increases in digital reading. On average, a Finn reads 5 magazines and 1.6 newspapers, their supplements, town papers or other free newspapers. Reading in print is the most popular platform for following news, as 80 percent of Finns read in print every week. Digital reading is the next most popular platform with 51 percent. The number of papers read on smartphones is approaching the number read on computers, while reading on tablets is increasing gradually, too.
Among all users, the most popular social networks used weekly for news are: Facebook with 34 percent, YouTube with nine percent, Twitter with six percent, WhatsApp with six percent and Suomi24 with five percent. Among the under 35-year-olds, the ranking and shares are different with Facebook first with 42 percent, then WhatsApp with 10 percent, Twitter with nine percent and YouTube with eight percent.
Monitoring reports between 2013 and 2016 by Reuters Institute show the rapid adoption of smartphones for news access. In 2016, more than half of those surveyed said they use a smartphone for accessing news. For Finland that share was 59 percent. This means that using smartphones for news is now more common than the use of computers or laptops. In Finland, 62 percent of people prefer established media websites over search engines as a news source.
As to the Finns, 40 percent already use online as their first way for coming across news in the morning. Finland has a strong reading culture and 20 percent of Finns still sit down with a printed newspaper in the morning, even though the country is in other ways highly digital. The Reuters study shows that in particular heavy social media users are around 50 percent more likely to access online news videos than the general population and that these heavy users are more likely under 35 years of age.
Among the most popular social networks related to news media are various news aggregators, media websites and their several sister sites, online publications and discussion portals. Ampparit.com by Otavamedia is the most popular news aggregator with 425,000 weekly visitors and a reach of 11 percent. Various Ampparit websites offer an extensive news flow from domestic news media.
The media websites of topic communities/discussions include five sites, of which four are sites for women’s and family magazines and two sites online only. The most popular community/discussion website is Vauva (Baby) by Sanoma Corporation, focused on mothers with infants, with 601,000 weekly visitors. The second is Kaksplus (TwoPlus) by Otavamedia, with 344,000 weekly visitors, also for women with small children. The third is women’s magazine Anna, by Otavamedia, with 298,000 visitors and the fourth is Demi, for young girls, by Otavamedia, with 203,000 weekly visitors. The next most popular are online-only magazines: Lily which is the online community of the magazine Trendi, published by A-Lehdet, with 152,000 visitors and Nainen.com (Woman), a lifestyle website for 16-35 years women, by Klik Klik company, with 80,000 weekly visitors.