APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200090021-3
around the country. In this way, opinions voiced in local and provincial newspapers may be given a national audience.
The majority of Sweden's newspapers are served with domestic and foreign news by the Central News Agency (TT), which is owned and operated jointly by the entire Swedish daily press. TT has an exchange agreement with, inter alia, Reuters of London, the French and West German news agencies, and the news agencies of the other Nordic countries. The U.S. press is represented in Sweden by the Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI), both of which provide foreign news to the Swedish press and cover Sweden for numerous foreign newspapers.
The marked disparity between the circulation figures of the daily newspapers and the relative strength of the political parties they support may be seen in Figure 27. What is most striking about these figures is the dominance of the Liberal press (48% of the circulation, but only 15% of the vote in 1968) and the weakness of the Social Democratic press (21% of the circulation, but 50.2% of the vote in 1968). Thus, the popular support for the party which has dominated Swedish politics for over a generation is not reflected in the purchase of newspapers. The Social Democrats attribute the failure of their newspapers to the fact that the Liberal and Conservative papers are older and have acquired a preferred position among readers and advertisers. The relative paucity of important advertising accounts—the Liberal and Conservative papers are preferred by advertisers because their readers are presumably more affluent—further weakens the financial position of the socialist press. The Social Democrats suffered a damaging blow in 1966 when their Stockholm morning newspaper, Stockholms-Tidningen, was compelled to cease publication, leaving one evening tabloid, Aftonbladet, as their sole press voice in the capital. Since Swedish evening newspapers are less dependent on advertising than those published in the morning, however, the odds are better that a Social Democratic evening newspaper will succeed. With the demise of Stockholms-Tidningen, the role of public spokesmen for the views of the government and the Social Democratic leadership has been assumed by the Malmo daily morning newspaper, Arbetet, which is the largest Social Democratic newspaper outside Stockholm.
The Liberal press occupies the dominant position in Sweden. Dagens Nyheter, which has the largest circulation of all the Swedish morning newspapers, is considered by many observers to be Sweden's best national newspaper. Its earlier, somewhat exclusive appeal to intellectuals and to the middle class has been broadened, and the paper's readership now includes all classes of the population. Expressen has the largest evening newspaper circulation in the country and, in fact, all of Scandinavia. Picture tabloid in format, it presents up-to-date coverage of foreign and national news. Next in importance to these two papers are Goteborgs Posten, which is Sweden's second largest morning newspaper and the largest newspaper outside Stockholm, and the Malmo-published Sydsvenska Dagbladet, which is the largest newspaper in southern Sweden and is characterized as Independent Liberal.
The chief spokesman of the Conservative Party, the morning paper Svenska Dagbladet, is one of the best and most respected newspapers in Sweden. It has high journalistic standards, and its foreign news coverage and financial analysis have long been regarded as the most comprehensive and lucid in the country. Rich in cultural material, it directs its appeal to the educated and upper income circles. Also of importance is the Karlstad-published Nya Warmlands Tidningen, which is the largest newspaper outside major population centers (1970 circulation of 76,000).
| Party | Number of Papers | Net Circulation | Percent | Number of Votes | Percent |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | 45 | 818,500 | 19.0 | 670,509 | 13.9 |
| Center | 13 | 130,500 | 3.0 | 779,749 | 16.1 |
| Liberal | 43 | 2,078,000 | 48.0 | 724,736 | 15.0 |
| Social Democratic | 24 | 890,800 | 21.0 | 2,420,277 | 50.2 |
| Communist | 1 | 401,400 | 8.9 | 145,172 | 3.0 |
| Others | 10 | 22,700 | 3.9 | 88,936 | 1.8 |
| Total | 145 | 4,329,300 | 100.0 | 4,829,370 | 100.0 |
50
APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200090021-3
