Scandinavian Newsrooms Pool Tech Budgets
Scandinavian media giants are ditching proprietary tech builds in favor of pooling resources for shared infrastructure like video platforms and AI tools. The strategy is to free up cash for quality journalism and focus on editorial, not engineering, as the core competitive advantage. This suggests a major shift in newsroom buying behavior toward collaborative, interoperable platforms.
This trend of technological collaboration among Scandinavian media houses has deep roots, with Nordic publishers recognizing early the efficiency of shared platforms. For example, Schibsted's video platform, "Stream," was developed in one newsroom and then rolled out to 40 others, including the 30 newspapers under the Polaris Media Group umbrella. This model allows for the cost of development and maintenance by a dedicated staff of around 10 to be spread across numerous publications. The collaboration extends beyond video infrastructure to the very core of news production. Schibsted's "Core News Product," an extensive editorial technology platform, is not only the backbone for its own major outlets like *Aftonbladet* and *Svenska Dagbladet* but has also been adopted by Polaris Media's 42 Norwegian media houses. This shared platform covers the entire workflow, from content creation and web-TV streaming to algorithm-driven front-page automation. On the AI front, joint initiatives are tackling everything from research to workflow efficiency. Danish publisher JP/Politikens Media Group partnered with several universities on a nearly four-year project to build proprietary AI tools, resulting in applications like the multi-tasking chatbot "Magna." In another cross-border effort, Sweden's *Aftonbladet* and the Danish Broadcasting Corporation collaborated with international partners to develop AURA, an AI-powered tool specifically designed to enhance journalistic research and analysis of large data sets. These partnerships are not limited to editorial tools but also address the business and distribution sides of media. Schibsted and Bonnier News, for instance, have collaborated on an ad-tech platform to create a more transparent programmatic advertising market. The two media giants also launched a joint e-commerce distribution company, leveraging their existing newspaper delivery networks to create new revenue streams and meet market demand for more efficient delivery solutions.
