Amedia is to give 680,000 young people free access to more than 120 newspapers. The offer can last for nine years per user. At the same time, Amedia-owned newspapers received NOK 110 million in press subsidies in 2024. Document Media AS has now filed a complaint with the Norwegian Competition Authority.
It is impossible to compete with free.
Yet that is precisely what small, independent media outlets such as Document are now expected to do.
From September, Amedia will give everyone between the ages of 15 and 23 free digital access to more than 120 newspapers. The scheme is being made permanent and covers around 680,000 potential young users. A 15-year-old can therefore read Amedia’s newspapers free of charge until turning 24. Amedia has subsequently announced a heavily discounted product until the age of 30.
Document Media AS today filed a complaint against Amedia with the Norwegian Competition Authority for possible breaches of Sections 10 and 11 of the Competition Act.
Nine years of free access!
Amedia markets the scheme as an initiative for democracy and to give young people access to editor-controlled news, they say. That is a neat euphemism for a long-term customer strategy. And it does not override competition law.
Amedia itself states that the offer is intended to strengthen the group’s position among young people. The group emphasises that it can follow users through nine formative years and that the project has already provided ‘valuable insights into young people’s media habits’.
Amedia has also written that the group must ‘create new relationships with younger generations’. In other words, there is no secret about what this is about: Amedia wants to establish a strong customer relationship before competitors even get the opportunity.
Users are age-verified through BankID and linked to Amedia’s aID login system. The group thereby gains not only traffic, but also identified users, detailed reading data and a direct channel for the subsequent sale of paid products.
This has considerable commercial value for any company. This already began in 2023, when Amedia gave school pupils free access to all its newspapers until ‘after the election’.
– We are now giving all pupils the opportunity to follow the intensive local election campaign and local political processes so that they can better understand how local democracy works and become better informed about what is at stake in a local election, said Amedia’s Executive Vice President for Public and Government Affairs, Marte Ingul.
And perhaps the opportunity to vote ‘correctly’ when the time comes?
Almost half of the local newspaper market
Amedia is Norway’s largest newspaper owner and controls 46 per cent of local and regional newspaper circulation. Amedia owns 108 Norwegian newspapers, has 19 partner newspapers, 876,705 subscribers and reaches around two million readers every day. Amedia had gross operating profit of NOK 390 million in 2024. In 2025, the result increased to NOK 593 million. At the same time, Amedia-owned newspapers received NOK 110 million in press subsidies in 2024.
It is therefore Norway’s largest newspaper group, with hundreds of millions in profits and substantial public subsidies, that is now setting the price at zero for an entire generation of potential subscribers.
Small media outlets have little with which to compete against such a group. We cannot give away our entire editorial product free of charge for nine years. Nor can we price a subscription so low that we lose money. For us, every single krone is needed if we are to grow.
We compete for the same readers
Document competes with Amedia’s newspapers for the same limited resources: readers’ time, attention and – not least – their willingness to pay.
When young people can meet their news needs through more than 120 Amedia newspapers without paying, it becomes more difficult for smaller media outlets to recruit them as subscribers. This has major consequences for the future.
Media outlets depend on establishing habits and paying relationships over time. If young people learn that digital news should be free until they are 24 – and almost free for several years thereafter – willingness to pay for alternative products is weakened.
At the same time, Amedia is building up an enormous base of BankID-verified users and knowledge of their interests and reading habits. This type of data foundation is impossible for small competitors to replicate.
In the short term, young users receive a free benefit. In the longer term, the result will be fewer independent media outlets, weaker competition and less genuine freedom of choice.
Media diversity cannot mean corporate diversity
Norwegian authorities spend large sums on press subsidies because they want media diversity and alternatives to the leading media outlets.
It is therefore a paradox that the largest player can use its financial strength to make its entire product free for a whole age group – while small competitors are entirely dependent on subscription revenues.
Media diversity means that readers should have genuine alternatives, not that one group should own as many newspapers as possible, control the login system, collect user data and serve as the gateway to editor-controlled news for an entire generation.
Amedia has the financial resources, technology, market power and newspaper portfolio that no small player can compete with. When this power is used to permanently set the price at zero for 680,000 potential customers, the Norwegian Competition Authority must act.
We ask the Authority to ensure that competition continues to exist.
