Panel - Best Practices of Innovation Policies in the

News Media Industry: NorwayProf Arne H. Krumsvik, Ph.D.

Dept. of Journalsim and Media Studies Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences

KRUMSVIK.COM

• a small country with high Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita• a digitally sophisticated market

Media are significantly less innovative• While 11.5% of the other service firms had introduced new products/services in

the period, only 1.7% of the media firms had done so. • Comparing media companies to firms in the other parts of the Information

sector, showed a significantly lower degree of innovativeness in media companies on 7 out of 9 types of innovation including product/service, process, organizational and marketing innovation.

Community Innovation Survey data in the period 2008-2012 on 174 newspapers, radio- and television broadcasting firms

Innovation policy• No systematic media innovation policy is found in Norway • The government favours horizontal and thus, sector neutral

instruments • None of the 17 current research projects on business model innovation

supported by the Research Council of Norway, totalling 60 million NOK, are dealing with media sector business model innovation

NOK 24 mill.USD 3.0 mill.EUR 2.6 mill.GBP 2.0 mill.

OMEN - Organizing for Media Innovation is a research project funded by the Norwegian Research Councilґs program BIA for 4 years.

Positive media policy measures • The distribution of production subsidies according to the size of the

print circulation led to a situation in which newspapers receiving such subsidies lacked incentives to develop offerings on new media platforms.• The difference between the zero rate for the print edition and the full

VAT rate (25%) for digital services meant bundled products would be charged full or partial VAT: As a result such offerings were not created.

Negative media policy measure

Policy• The idea that ownership

plurality leads to diversity of content has been dominating in Norway, and was used as justification for ownership limitations

Problem• Media outlets owned by large

media groups are more innovative*

* Krumsvik, A. H., Skogerbø, E. & Storsul, T. (2013). Size, Ownership and Innovation in Newspapers. In T. Storsul & A. H. Krumsvik (Eds.), Media Innovations: A Multidisciplinary Study of Change (pp. 93-109). Gothenburg: Nordicom. ISBN 9789186523657.

Summary• People are rich and digital • Media are not innovative• Media policies are not helping

Arne H. KrumsvikKRUMSVIK.COM

Krumsvik, A. H., Pedersen, P. E., and Kvale, K. (Forthcoming). Market Structure and Media Innovation Policies in Norway. In H. van Kranenburg (Ed.). Innovation Policies in the European News and Media Industry: A Comparative Study. Berlin: Springer.