Fréttablaðið


Fréttablaðið is an Icelandic newspaper. It is distributed daily, except on Sundays.

History and profile

Fréttablaðið was established in 2001. The paper was published 6 days per week, Monday - Saturday until September 2003 when its frequency was switched to daily. It is primarily owned by the media group 365 media.
Fréttablaðið has been accused of siding politically with the Social Democratic Alliance and for favouring Icelandic membership of the European Union. However, many of its editors have had ties with its main political opponent the conservative Independence Party and its former editor-in-chief and regular columnist is its former leader and Prime Minister Þorsteinn Pálsson.
In the period of 2001-2002 the paper had a circulation of 70,000.
In 2017, 365 Miðlar sold most of its assets to Fjarskipti ehf, the parent company of Vodafone Iceland, including the website visir.is. 365 Miðlar kept Fréttablaðið along with Glamour magazine and opened a new website, frettabladid.is. After the sale to fjarskipti, 365 Miðlar moved operations for Fréttablaðið, Glamour magazine and frettabladid.is under Torg ehf., its subsidiary.
In October 2019, Helgi Magnússon and other investors bought 365 Miðlar's shares in Torg ehf. Helgi had previously bought 50% of Torg ehf's stocks earlier in 2019. As a part of the sale, Ólöf Skaftadóttir stepped down as editor and was replaced with Jón Þórisson. After the sale, the new owners announced their plans to merge Fréttablaðið with the TV station Hringbraut.