State committee questions Vikan’s eligibility for media support
Thursday 8th October 2026 on 14:45 in
Iceland
A government committee has provisionally found that magazines Vikan and Hús og híbýli do not publish enough news or news-related material to qualify their publisher, Birtíngur, for operating support for 2025, mbl.is reports. The final decision has not been made.
Birtíngur strongly disputes the assessment, which the committee issued on September 22. It classifies the magazines’ content as coverage of social issues rather than news. A June 2026 law change removed social-issue coverage as a separate category of eligible content. Birtíngur had previously received support for Vikan’s editorial work.
The publisher argues that the regulation defines news as regular reporting on current events that a media outlet considers to be of public interest, and does not limit it to politics, economics or so-called hard news. Coverage of health, housing, consumer and family issues can also qualify, it says.
Birtíngur also says outlets including DV and Mannlíf have repeatedly turned interviews from Vikan into news stories and cited the magazine as their source. It argues that it is inconsistent for another outlet’s retelling of an interview to count as news while the original interview does not.
Vikan and Hús og híbýli are registered with the Media Commission and have the same obligations under media law as other registered outlets. Birtíngur says a narrow interpretation of news could treat media companies unequally, noting that larger publishers receiving state support publish comparable material in their lifestyle sections.
The publisher has also objected that its application concerns operating costs from 2025 but is being assessed under a law amended in June 2026 and regulations issued in July. It says the uncertainty makes long-term planning difficult for magazine publishers.
The dispute is part of Birtíngur’s broader effort to secure a place for Icelandic magazines in state support schemes. The company met Culture, Innovation and Higher Education Minister Logi Már Einarsson in January and proposed support for magazine publishing on terms similar to those for book publishing, including reimbursement of some publication costs. Birtíngur warns that magazine publishing could weaken further if it is not included in either media or book-publishing support.