At the start of November, the reformed Postal Act and the newspaper delivery support entered into force. As the number of traditional postal items continues to decrease, the Postal Act enables cost-effective mail delivery. Posti was granted newspaper delivery support in 17 regions in order to secure the delivery of newspapers on five days a week.
The Postal Act defines the frequency of the collection and delivery of letter items included in universal service, i.e. letters and postcards with stamps. The legislative amendment makes the universal service obligation lighter and more flexible, so that future postal services can be implemented efficiently while taking the needs of the consumers into account.
Following the amendments to the Postal Act, postal items covered by universal service must be collected and delivered at least three weekdays a week, except for midweek holidays. Up to this point, the delivery obligation had generally been five weekdays a week.
The Postal Act does not regulate the delivery days of other letters, newspapers, magazines, advertisements or parcels.
Fixed-term state support for the delivery of newspapers is being introduced in October. The purpose of the support is to make it possible to deliver newspapers five weekdays a week in areas with no commercially implemented early-morning delivery network and no fully comprehensive five-day early-morning delivery. The support is granted for the delivery of newspapers on Tuesdays and Thursdays in these areas.
The delivery support will be tendered, and the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom will be responsible for the preparation and implementation of the tendering. The state support is paid to the delivery company and can cover the net costs of newspaper delivery and a reasonable profit.
The delivery support applies to postal codes that fall outside comprehensive early-morning delivery, which means roughly half of all postal codes. The support will be allocated to the delivery of subscription-based, paid newspapers published at least three weekdays a week, and it will apply to Tuesday and Thursday delivery days. In the areas receiving the delivery support, universal service products, i.e. stamped letters, will be delivered on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, which means that the number of delivery days will increase to five.
There are a total of 38 areas receiving support, largely following the regional borders, with the exception of Lapland, where the areas receiving support mainly follow the municipal borders.
The delivery support was granted to Posti throughout the country, excluding Lapland, i.e. in a total of 17 areas.
In the municipalities of Lapland, Posti’s applications were rejected because the time limit for the end of delivery at 4 p.m. could not have been met in Posti’s operating model. In the 20 municipalities of Lapland where Posti’s applications were rejected and there were no other applicants, Traficom obligates Posti Distribution Ltd to take care of newspaper delivery on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Learn more:
Traficom website: Information about the newspaper delivery support (in Finnish)
Traficom’s announcement: Traficom granted government grants for newspaper delivery - the aim is to secure a comprehensive delivery network in the whole country | Traficom (in English)
