State Support for Cultural Magazines

In Finland, the State supports a diverse media landscape through financial support to cultural magazines.

The State's financial support for cultural magazines consists of three strands: subsidies for magazine publishing, the so-called "subscription support system" and quality awards. The lion's share of the budget is used for subsidising the publishers. Subsidies were granted by the Ministry until 2018. In 2018, the subsidies were allocated to the Arts Promotion Centre as part of the overall reform of state's subsidy policy.

To be eligible for a state subsidy, a party publishing a cultural magazine in print or online must be considered to uphold public discourse on culture, science, art or different world views and convictions. In addition to quality criteria, subsidised magazines must have been in a situation where their continuation would have been difficult without a financial contribution of the State. In practice, this means the magazines receiving subsidies usually have a small circulation. Grant is awarded to app. 80 print or online cultural magazine. The amount of grant varies between 2000 to 58 000 euros.

The subscription support system refers to an allocation from the Ministry of Education and Culture to public libraries, which can be used to subscribe to cultural magazines with small circulation. Via this measure, the State aims to diversify the magazine offering of public libraries and ensure a regionally equal access to cultural magazines on one hand and increase the circulation of the magazines on the other.