Aamulehti Corporation, a listed Finnish newspaper group, is to merge with MTV Oy, Finland's leading commercial television company. The result will be an all-media publishing house involved in daily, evening and local newspaper publishing, radio, TV, books and multimedia. The combined turnover of the group will reach about 500 million US$.
The main competitor for the new group is the combined Sanoma-Helsinki Media group. Sanoma-Helsinki Media has an turnover of around 600 million US$. It is strong in the daily and evening newspapers market, where it owns both market leader newspapers. Aamulehti-MTV again is strong in commercial television and in financial newspapers, where it owns the market leaders. Sanoma-Helsinki Media will launch both a new commercial TV channel and a financial newspaper later this year.
Aamulehti-MTV's largest owner is the Swedish firm Marieberg, with around 29 per cent of the shares and votes in Aamulehti. Marieberg's intention is to own around 20 per cent of the new group.
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