Business Model Innovation - Challenges and Opportunities in the Swedish Newspaper Industry

Abstract: The digital era has mercilessly affected the media landscape by changing the way information and news are disseminated and consumed. This has led to an increased need to move activities online and an outdated business model among newspapers. The Swedish newspaper industry has so far struggled to do business in the digital world. Hence, the need for business model innovation is greater than ever. If newspapers cannot find a new sustainable business model to be able to provide independent and qualitative journalism, it poses a threat to democracy. This study aimed to explore challenges and opportunities with business model innovation in the Swedish newspaper industry. Sixteen interviews were carried out with people working at eight different newspapers to get an overall picture of the innovation work in the industry. The empirical findings were analysed based on a theoretical framework built around innovation, business model and media. This thesis presents nine challenges and five opportunities of business model innovation in the Swedish newspaper industry. The identified challenges are; developing the unique value in digital, developing new revenue streams, having 150 years of legacy, interlinking the parts of the business model when all parts have changed, running an established printing business in parallel, competing with actors from outside-industry, playing an important role for a democratic society, establishing an innovation strategy and not having anyone to take good examples from. The identified opportunities are; increasing innovation efforts regarding partnerships, focusing on qualitative journalism, continuing to increase the collaboration in the industry, accentuating the democratic purpose and visualising how the business model has developed to enhance the understanding of it and assess innovation efforts. Newspapers operating on the Swedish media market must innovate their business models, and should take these findings into consideration while doing so. The findings contribute to theory by filling the gap in literature on new media from the perspective of innovation theory.