Sýn television news ended after almost 40 years in Iceland on Monday evening, leaving public broadcaster RÚV as the country’s only provider of a national television newscast from 1 September. The closure comes as RÚV itself is reducing its workforce by the equivalent of 10 to 15 full-time positions, adding to concerns about the size and diversity of Iceland’s media sector.
Sýn broadcast its final evening television news programme on 31 August. Television news had been part of the company and its predecessors since Stöð 2 launched its news service in 1986.
The company said the decision reflected changing media habits, with a growing share of the public consuming news through digital platforms. Sýn will instead concentrate more resources on its online outlet Vísir and radio station Bylgjan, while continuing to operate a newsroom outside television.
Sýn television news ends after four decades
The restructuring also means job losses. Sýn CEO Herdís Dröfn Fjeldsted said the layoffs would affect around 10 employees, primarily people involved in television news production.
The company’s management argued that producing a television newscast was no longer financially sustainable under current conditions. The final broadcast nevertheless stressed that Sýn’s journalism itself was not disappearing. At its conclusion, editor Kolbeinn Tumi Daðason told viewers: “So we are not saying goodbye. We are saying thank you.”
The closure follows another significant development for Sýn. In August, negotiations over the proposed sale of its web and radio businesses to Ásar, the parent company of telecommunications operator Síminn, ended without an agreement following due diligence. Vísir, Bylgjan and Sýn’s other digital and radio outlets therefore remain within the company.
From 1 September, RÚV is consequently the only Icelandic broadcaster producing a national television news programme. RÚV’s Head of News (fréttastjóri), Heiðar Örn Sigurfinnsson, said the disappearance of Sýn’s television newsroom was also bad news for the public broadcaster because it removes a source of competition and comparison from Icelandic television journalism.
RÚV is cutting the equivalent of 10 to 15 positions
At the same time, RÚV has begun its own cost-cutting programme affecting the equivalent of 10 to 15 full-time positions.
Director General (útvarpsstjóri) Stefán Eiríksson said the public broadcaster faces many of the same economic pressures as other media companies. High inflation has increased operating costs, while revenue from advertising and services has declined.
The reductions will combine direct layoffs with positions being left vacant, including jobs opened by employees retiring. RÚV is reviewing operations across all its departments, according to Eiríksson.
Fewer employees will inevitably have an impact on the organisation’s activities, he said, while adding that RÚV intends to continue fulfilling its statutory public-service responsibilities. Vísir reported that the measures had already begun before the weekend.
Iceland’s television news market is getting smaller
The two developments are different in scale and nature. Sýn is abandoning television news altogether while maintaining journalism on digital and radio platforms, whereas RÚV is reducing staffing across an organisation that will continue to provide television, radio and digital news.
Together, however, they narrow an already small media market. The end of Sýn’s evening newscast removes the only television competitor to the public broadcaster, while RÚV is simultaneously being asked to operate with fewer staff.
The closure has therefore raised a broader question about media pluralism in Iceland. Competition between newsrooms does not only provide audiences with different outlets; it also gives journalists competing editorial organisations against which their own coverage can be compared.
Sýn’s move towards digital and radio shows how changing consumption patterns are reshaping Icelandic journalism. But with commercial television news disappearing and the public broadcaster reducing its workforce at the same time, the debate is increasingly about whether the country’s media market can sustain enough independent journalistic capacity across different platforms.
