Verdens Gang

Verdens Gang ("The course of the world"), generally known under the abbreviation VG, is a Norwegian tabloid newspaper. In 2016, circulation numbers stood at 93,883, having declined from a peak circulation of 390,510 in 2002. VG is nevertheless the most read online newspaper in Norway, with about 2 million daily readers.[1]

Verdens Gang

Front page from 8 October 2006. Featured in the cover story is Austrian kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch.
Type	Daily newspaper + online edition
Format	Tabloid
Owner(s)	Schibsted ASA
Editor	Gard Steiro
Founded	1945 (1945)
Political alignment	None
Headquarters	Akersgata 55, Oslo, Norway
Website	www.vg.no

Verdens Gang AS is a private company wholly owned by the public company Schibsted ASA.[2] Somewhere between 30% and 60% of Schibsted is owned by international institutional investors such as Goldman Sachs and Northern Trust.[3] Norwegian owners held a mere 42% of the shares in Schibsted at the end of 2015;[4] VG is thus foreign-owned.

History and profile

VG was established by members of the resistance movement shortly after the country was liberated from German occupation in 1945.[5] The first issue of the paper was published on 23 June 1945.[6] Christian A. R. Christensen was the first editor-in-chief of VG from its start in 1945 to 1967 when he died.[7]

VG is based in Oslo.[8] The paper is published in tabloid format.[9] The owner is the media conglomerate Schibsted,[7] which also owns Norway's largest newspaper, Aftenposten,[10] as well as newspapers in Sweden and Estonia and shares in some of Norway's larger regional newspapers. Schibsted took over the paper following the death of Christensen in 1967.[7] Just before the change in the ownership VG was mostly sold in the Oslo area and had a circulation of 34,000 copies.[11]

The editor-in-chief is Gard Steiro.[12] VG is not affiliated with any political party.

For many years, VG was the largest newspaper in Norway by circulation, which reached a peak of 390,000 in 2002. As its readers moved from the traditional newspaper to internet newspapers, the circulation has collapsed to 94,000 in 2016. VG is now the second largest print newspaper in Norway. It was overtaken by Aftenposten in 2010. The online newspaper vg.no is, however, by far the most visited in Norway, with 2 million daily readers.[13]

VG Nett

VG Nett is VG's news site online. It was started in 1995.[14] VG Nett made a net operating profit of 40 percent in 2006, making it an unusually successful online media operation.[15] According to figures from TNG Gallup, it had approximately 2 million daily readers in 2016.[16]

VG's web pages also include a discussion forum, VG Debatt.[17]

Circulation

Numbers from the Norwegian Media Businesses' Association, Mediebedriftenes Landsforening.

Circulation of the printed newspaper VG 1980–2016

The daily number of readers of the internet newspaper vg.no 1996–2016[1]

• 1980: 200536
• 1981: 227191
• 1982: 240302
• 1983: 256747
• 1984: 269140
• 1985: 290705
• 1986: 317049
• 1987: 333698
• 1988: 345636
• 1989: 360331
• 1990: 367036
• 1991: 365318
• 1992: 374092
• 1993: 377575
• 1994: 386137
• 1995: 371238
• 1996: 356861
• 1997: 370115[8]
• 1998: 364619
• 1999: 373552
• 2000: 375983
• 2001: 387508
• 2002: 390510
• 2003: 380190
• 2004: 365266
• 2005: 343703
• 2006: 315549
• 2007: 309610
• 2008: 284414
• 2009: 262374
• 2010: 233295
• 2011: 211588
• 2012: 188345
• 2013: 164430
• 2014: 138188
• 2015: 112716
• 2016: 93883

See also

• List of Norwegian newspapers

References

1. "Lesertall for norske nettaviser". medienorge. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
2. Stig A. Nohrstedt; et al. (2000). "From the Persian Gulf to Kosovo — War Journalism and Propaganda" (PDF). European Journal of Communication. 15 (3). Retrieved 8 January 2015.
3. "Schibsted ASA - Oslo - Roller og kunngjøringer". www.proff.no. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
4. "Aksjonærer - Schibsted". www.schibsted.com. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
5. Epp Lauk; Svennik Hoyer (Fall 2008). "Recreating journalism after censorship. Generational shifts and professional ambiguities among journalists after changes in the political systems" (PDF). Central European Journal of Communication. 1 (1). Retrieved 31 December 2014.
6. "Verdens Gang". NorgesLexi (in Norwegian). Archived from the original on 21 June 2012. Retrieved 30 August 2008.
7. Olav Anders Øvrebø (2008). "Journalism After the Monopoly on Publishing has been Broken" (Book chapter). Bergen Open Research Archive. Retrieved 29 December 2014.
8. "Media in Norway" (Guideline). Regjeringen.no. 31 August 1996. Retrieved 22 November 2014.
9. Adam Smith (15 November 2002). "Europe's Top Papers". campaign. Retrieved 7 February 2015.
10. Craig Carroll (1 September 2010). Corporate Reputation and the News Media: Agenda-setting Within Business News Coverage in Developed, Emerging, and Frontier Markets. Routledge. p. 155. ISBN 978-1-135-25244-1. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
11. Sigurd Høst (1999). "Newspaper Growth in the Television Era. The Norwegian Experience" (PDF). Nordicom Review. 1 (1). Retrieved 31 December 2014.
12. "Torry Pedersen går av som ansvarlig redaktør i VG". VG (in Norwegian). 4 January 2017. Retrieved 4 February 2011.
13. MedieNorge statistics, http://www.medienorge.uib.no/statistikk/medium/avis
14. "Online Journalism Atlas: Norway". Online Journalism. 25 January 2008. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
15. Pfanner, Eric. (18 February 2007) "Norwegian newspaper publisher finds the secret to profiting online". International Herald Tribune. Archived 20 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 1 February 2009.
16. MedieNorge statistics, http://www.medienorge.uib.no/statistikk/medium/avis/253
17. "Forsiden - VG Nett Debatt". vgd.no. Retrieved 19 March 2018.