A unanimous board of directors for Nyhetsbolaget under the recommendation of CEO Åsa Tillberg has decided to give her the task of phasing out TV4 News as a traditionally distributed TV channel. The decision means 20 positions will be eliminated within Nyhetsbolaget.

"Despite the fact that TV4 News has developed into a high-quality news channel, TV viewership hasn't increased as quickly as we expected when we started the channel," says Tillberg. "I don't see that TV4 News in its current format has the possibility to become profitable."

Bonnier Corp. has expanded its presence in the men’s market, acquiring nine motorcycle brands from Source Interlink Media. Under the deal, Bonnier acquires Motorcyclist, Sport Rider, Dirt Rider, Motorcycle Cruiser, Hot Bike, Baggers, Super Streetbike, Street Chopper and ATV Rider.

“The acquisition supports Bonnier’s strategy to be focused in vertical enthusiast interest media,” says CEO Dave Freygang. “We believe in going deep into selected verticals, and it’s essential that our brands be in a leadership position within those verticals. Since the acquisition of Cycle World in 2011, we’ve realized that the opportunities within the motorcycle market are significant.”

At the same time, Bonnier sells to Source Interlink Sound + Vision, TransWorld SNOWboarding, TransWorld Motocross, TransWorld SKATEboarding, TransWorld SURF, TransWorld RIDEbmx and TransWorld Business.

Bonnier will now own the top two motorcycle brands in the industry: Cycle World and Motorcyclist. Along with the other motorcycle titles, the collection will form the Bonnier Motorcycle Group. Andrew Leisner, publisher of existing title  Cycle World will be VP, Group Publisher of the new Bonnier Motorcycle Group. 

Bonnier Corp. Executive Vice President Eric Zinczenko says, “Our new portfolio of motorcycle brands positions us to serve every segment of the motorcycle community and reach the largest aggregate of motorcycle enthusiast consumers possible. Our unwavering commitment to motorcycles and our industry partners continues.

“The new Bonnier Motorcycle Group’s audience demographics complement those of our existing men’s titles. This will allow our company to approach our advertising base with even more scale and deeper integrated offerings.”

When Finnish publisher WSOY recently launched two thought-provoking books about women and leadership in business and politics at the same time, the company decided to do something a little different with the launch: Publisher Leena Majander invited a wide range of political, business and cultural leaders to a party at the Bonnier House on Korkeavuorenkatu in Helsinki.

Facebook co-founder Sheryl Sandberg’s thought-provoking book Lean In – Women and the Will to Lead was published within a month of Eveliina Talvitie’s Keitäs tyttö kahvia  (Hey Girl, Why Don't You Make some Coffee), so it made sense to celebrate them both since the two books fit together so perfectly.

“Both books bring to light serious everyday problems women face during their careers, and both show concrete ways to live and build successful careers while dealing with the competing problems,” says Majander. “Eveliina Talvitie showcases dozens of experiences about women in politics in her book. They all prove that also in the Nordics women feel that their sex is a major issue and influences their work. Sheryl Sandberg’s message is, that the world would be a better place if men would take care of half the work at home and women half the business. She encourages in her book all women to lean in, accept the challenges and trust themselves.”

The party was well-attended by everyone from former Speaker of Parliament and Education Minister Riitta Uosukainen and former Prime Minister Mari Kiviniemi to CEO of Diacor Health Services Anni Vepsäläinen (who wrote the foreword to Lean In). And appropriately, the group was serenaded by a duo called Laulavat kahvinkeittäjät (Singing Coffee Makers).

“These kinds of happenings showcase the need and value of different kinds of women-woven networks,” says Majander. “It’s sad, but it was said more than once during the day that the support that women may have from men in the beginning of their careers seems to vanish the day when women really start to gain some power and start being on the same level as those very men.”

The Adlibris Group, which includes online retailers Adlibris and Dischop, continues growing with the purchase of online toystore Bamba.se.

Bamba.se was founded in 2010 and is one of Sweden's fastest growing toystores on the web. The acquisition of Bamba.se is a step in the Adlibris Group's longterm development strategy in a quickly expanding e-commerce market, which will include growth organically as well as via acquisition.

"E-commerce grew 14 percent in 2012 and toys are a strong segment that is on an upswing," says Henrik Oscarsson, CEO of Discshop and responsible for acquistions for the Adlibris Group. "We've followed Bamba's development and are impressed with its success without compromising quality or customer service, which is why the acquisition is right for us."

Today Bonnier Gaming AB announced it has signed an agreement with Nordic Leisure AB for the acquisition of Malta-based Redbet Gaming Ltd. The acquisition includes Redbet Gaming’s online brands Redbet, Whitebet, Heypoker and Total Poker.

“We are proud and excited that the acquisition is underway,” says Marcus Forsell, CEO for Bonnier Gaming. “Redbet has long been going strong in the Nordic market. We hope that together, as part of Bonnier Gaming, we can develop Redbet to even greater heights.”

The sale is subject to approval by the Maltese Lotteries and Gaming Authority.

Yesterday, some 500 people from a range of Bonnier companies converged on the Rigoletto Theater in downtown Stockholm to hear a presentation of this year’s Media Map 2013 from Sara Öhrvall. Produced annually by R&D, the report covers digital trends that are changing the media landscape.

In her presentation, Öhrvall talked about a range of phenomena, from information vegetables – reading tools that help users slow down media consumption into “healthy” portions – to ambient media, which makes the Internet interface non-intrusive and “glanceable.”

Before and after the presentation of the Media Map, CEO Jonas Bonnier put things in context, emphasizing that the need for stories, news, information and entertainment isn’t going to disappear in the near future. “What we must decide is how we can customize products according to the needs of consumers rather than according to what we can produce.”

Yesterday, Finnish broadcasting network MTV Media launched a major restructuring project to bring the company closer to its audience. 

"We have long studied the changes that are taking place in media consumption," says Heikki Rotko, CEO for MTV Media. "We have worked together with our viewers, listeners and visitors. It is clear that the nature of media consumption has changed, and we must be ready to respond to this change."

The restructuring will change the operating models of the company and give online services a more prominent role.  Efforts already undertaken include the updated mtv3.fi and radionova.fi websites and the launch of the video-on-demand service Filmnet. MTV Media will also focus on providing online streaming. So far, five sports channels included in the MTV3 Total package can be streamed online via the web TV service Katsomo. Later on this year, free channels MTV3, Sub and AVA will be streamed online as well.

The restructuring will culminate at the end of 2013 when a new umbrella brand MTV will be launched. This will bring the new brand hierarchy together. It will also include an update of the visuals of each TV channel and brand.

"This is really a major restructuring, and we have been working on it for a long time," says Rotko. "The biggest engine for the change has definitely been our staff, who have really invested all their skills and creativity into this. The entire media sector now needs bold moves, and this is our response to the ongoing debate about the changes in media."

During June and July, all of the magazines of Swedish publisher Bonnier Tidskrifter will bear a yellow stamp with the text "Your time, Magazine Moment." It's part of a comprehensive campaign, including commercials shown in movie theaters, that aims to highlight magazine reading. It's the first step in a long-term marketing strategy from Bonnier Tidskrifter.

As new marketing development manager, Agneta Ljungman was given the task at Bonnier Tidskrifter of developing ways to highlight the publisher's brands over the long term.

One of the results is the Magazine Moment campaign. The phrase has already been used via Bonnier Tidskrifter's annual Magazine Moment event for advertisers and ad agencies - but now it's being taken even further and being brought to actual readers.

"We want to establish the concept 'Magazine Moment,' which aims to bring to mind for consumers the special time they take when they read a magazine," says Ljungman. "A time everyone deserves to have. A Magazine Moment. It's also a seal of approval for the magazines. During the summer, a yellow stamp on the cover our magazines will be visible on newsstands. Our strong brands will be connected to it."

The branding campaign will start in the middle of June and run through to mid-July at Swedish newsstand chain Pressbyrån, where readers who buy two magazines will get mascara from the Makeup Store. Print ads in Bonnier Tidskrifter titles, Swedish ad industry trade magazine Resume and inserts in major Swedish daily newspapers. From June to August, the campaign will include commercials shown at SF Bio movie theaters and at the cinema website sf.se.

"We've chosen to launch during the summer, the time of the year where people are most interested in magazines," says Ljungman.

Starting in 2014, Jonas Bonnier will focus on his role as Chairman of the Board for Bonnier Corporation and be based in the U.S.

“During a period marked by huge challenges for the media industry and our companies, Jonas Bonnier has done an excellent job,” says Carl-Johan Bonnier, Chairman of the Board for Bonnier AB. “Not the least of which is his rejuvenation of the management team, an important contribution for the future. Jonas Bonnier has also actively driven the transition to digital business models. It’s heartening to know that Bonnier AB today is actually on sounder financial footing than it has been for a long time.”

“Much has happened since I took over as CEO,” says Jonas Bonnier. “The world has undergone a profound financial crisis and the media industry must adapt to a new reality. Still, the interest in news and entertainment is at record highs and Bonnier has come a long way in reorganizing for tomorrow. With SEK 7.5 billion in liquid assets, Bonnier’s finances are strong as well. It’s a good time for me to hand over the reins.

“For my own part, I’m looking forward to being even more actively engaged as chairman of the board for Bonnier Corporation, our U.S. operations.”

Jonas Bonnier took over as Vice President for Bonnier AB in January 2004 and as CEO for Bonnier AB in January 2008.

Download a photo of Jonas Bonnier here. 

For more information:

Carl-Johan Bonnier, Chairman of the Board, Bonnier AB, tel. +46 (0)8 736 40 00

Jonas Bonnier, President & CEO, Bonnier AB, tel. +46 (0)8 736 40 00

Bodil Ericsson Torp, VP Communications and Human Development, Bonnier AB, tel. +46 (0)8 736 4366

After three years and more than a thousand apps, mobile publishing platform Mag+ has far expanded from the magazines like Popular Science that were its first big hits. While periodicals like the newly released New York magazine app and the British Journal of Photography make up a large number of those thousand apps, brands that have nothing to do with publishing are jumping on the bandwagon. Brands like street wear company WeSC, which recently launched an app on the platform with design help from Mag+ as well, are using the platform to create apps with the aim to increase brand loyalty and sales – and even bring in new revenues.

“There is remarkable opportunity for smart publishers and other brands to make money by rethinking what, when and how they serve their audiences,” says Mag+ Chief Creative Officer and co-founder Mike Haney. “By thinking creatively about the best content for all channels available to them, including mobile, publishers can be the drivers, the innovators of the next boom in content.”

Looking at the data from Mag+ analytics and its extensive experience with a wide range of apps, Mag+ recently issued four interesting insights about effective apps, monetization and custom content trends.

Thinking about tribes, right content and right time

Smart brands will figure out new ways to deepen their audience relationships by moving beyond monthly issues to a community membership model, where content arrives in all forms on a variety of devices on a regular and ongoing basis. Membership could include a premium print publication, a dynamic HTML website for up-to-the-minute news, apps that have utility on the go and deliver more frequent issues, push alerts for breaking news, even events, webinars and other ways to connect directly with the brand.

There is consumer revenue here
Smart publishers can monetize on a mobile publishing platform. Since its inception PopSci+ has grown to 100,000 digital subscribers across all tablets, made USD 1.56 million net from iTunes through 1.6 million unique downloads, and sold 180,000 single copies. And there are plenty of other examples. Many publications are now able to charge more for their iPad subscriptions than for print. They are also seeing more subscription purchases than single-issue purchases and renewal rates are far higher than with print publications at much lower cost.

Creativity wins the day in both experience and advertising
Companies that think creatively will be the first to take full advantage of the community membership model. Creative use of video, audio and imagery, such as moving magazine covers, content appropriate soundtracks and even games are the tools content companies now have at their disposal. Advertisers are also finding new ways to engage audiences on touchscreen devices. While the advertising and publishing industries still have a long way to go in building a touchscreen ad paradigm, everyone agrees we will get there—there are simply too many eyeballs at stake not to make it work. In addition, the technology is the best platform advertisers have ever had to make users see their ads as a service and not a nuisance.

Custom media opportunities abound
While the overwhelming majority of content-heavy apps have been offshoots of traditional publications, Mag+ sees the custom content sector growing rapidly. Comic books, performing arts venues and corporations are all evaluating the possibilities of app-based publishing. Even museums are getting into the act, like the Victoria and Albert Museum in London whose app showcases exhibitions, so you can see great exhibits wherever you are in the world.

Does the phrase “native advertising” mean anything to you? If you work with digital media, chances are you’ve heard a lot about one of the newer developments in online ads, native which basically takes the advertorial to the web by putting specially designed advertising material close to regular editorial content, albeit marked as an ad.

“Native advertising has been making big advances in journalism in the U.S. recently, proving itself to be more profitable for media companies, more effective for advertisers and more appreciated by site visitors than traditional advertising,” says Andreas Wiss of TV4 Digital Media, who has been working with a native advertising project at the Swedish TV network.

As they watched the trend grow, Wiss and others from the digital media team decided it was time for TV4 to test it out for themselves. They started planning how they could provide native advertising on both the tv4.se website as well as on TV4 Play, the network’s play-on-demand service. “We approached Volvo to see if they wanted to be our pilot advertiser,” he says. “It turned out that Volvo was planning a strong campaign with the music group Swedish House Mafia and we thought that would fit perfectly with the native advertising platform.”

The Volvo campaign started on May 17 and included the world-premiere of the music video to a new version of Swedish House Mafia’s “Leave the World Behind” which was shown during a specially-dedicated commercial break during the broadcast of TV4’s hugely popular Let’s Dance– the Swedish version of Dancing With the Stars– and the video was shown at the same time on both tv4.se and TV4 Play, together with a behind the scenes clip and other bonus material. The campaign continued until June 2, and along with the native advertising included one-minute and 30 second commercial spots from Volvo both during programming, both broadcast and on TV4 Play.

“Native advertising is so new that there is a lot of experimentation going on in regards to both campaign content and the available platforms,” says Wiss. “What’s important to the success of native advertising is that the advertiser needs to create content that’s relevant for the user, that the context is right for the content, and that it’s clear that it’s sponsored content. A range of studies have shown that native advertising can increase factors such as awareness, intention to buy and brand preferences for advertisers.”

It also can take more planning and work, depending on what the advertiser provides – whether there is existing native-compatible campaign material or not. Of course, TV4 offers assistance for those advertisers who need help, via its production partner Spoon. “It’s especially important not only that the content is relevant for viewers, but that it fits with what the advertiser wants to communicate as well as TV4’s brand.”

While he can’t give out any details, Wiss does say that the campaign has been very popular and we can expect to see more on TV4.se and TV4 Play. “Our first native advertising campaign has been received positively by both advertisers and viewers. The fast-growing content-marketing trend among advertisers is undoubtedly a sign that this will only grow.”

When Göteborgs-Tidningen published an article last June about the then-recently instituted congestion tax for the Swedish city of Göteborg, the reaction from readers was overwhelming. “Gothenburgers had been promised that a congestion tax wouldn’t be put in place without a public referendum, a promise that was broken, so they felt they’d been completely steamrollered by the politicians,” says Frida Boisen, editor-in-chief for Göteborgs-Tidningen (GT).

It was the spark that started a drive by the daily newspaper to push politicians to take the issue to a public referendum. “It was my news editor Markus Hankins who posed the idea,” says Boisen. “I felt immediately that this was an important issue of democracy that we, as a liberal newspaper, should support.”

Boisen set aside all the resources she could for the initiative – and it quickly became a real rallying point for the paper.

Starting in August of 2012, the paper published daily a mailer that people could clip out and send in with their name and signature, since Swedish law requires actual physical signatures for such a petition. Boisen turned the editor-in-chief’s office into a mail room so the receptionist could sort the incoming mailers and make sure they were filled out correctly. The paper also set up a site just for the referendum petition campaign at GT.se as well as a Facebook group, which became quite popular.

Naturally, the paper wrote about the topic extensively, with Boisen herself contributing some 20 columns on the petition and referendum. Reporters also interviewed hundreds of Gothenburgers, and a special edition of the paper was published covering just the petition drive. “We also held two public outdoor meetings with people debating the topic and forced the first live-broadcast web-streaming of a Göteborg City Council meeting where politicians ended up voting in favor of a referendum,” says Boisen.

In the end, GT ended up with more than 90,000 signatures, with nearly 50,000 approved by the city government. “It’s the biggest public referendum in Swedish democratic history,” says Boisen proudly.

A date hasn’t been decided yet for the referendum, but hopes are that it will be held in conjunction with the next general election in 2014 – if it’s part of the general election not only will there likely be far more people casting their votes, but it would also be much less costly.

“One thing I do want to be clear about,” says Boisen. “We are definitely for having a public referendum, we cherish our democracy and freedom of speech. But that doesn’t mean we’re against the congestion tax. On the contrary, we have published an editorial in favor of it. But it’s most important for us that the question be put to a vote, as it was done in Stockholm. It’s important for voters to be able to trust politicians. Democracy is actually quite fragile and needs to be protected. It’s easy for us to take that for granted in Sweden today.”

Bodil Ericsson Torp steps down as VP for communications & human development today. After having done an excellent job in her current position and 15 years with different roles within Bonnier, Ericsson Torp has decided to leave the company. Starting Oct. 1, she will be CEO for Aller Media.

David Salsbäck will serve as acting director of communications, with responsibility for press and other communications question.

As single copy sales of magazines at the newsstand have gotten tougher, subscriptions have become ever more important to publishers. But how do you inspire loyalty in your readers? For Norwegian women’s title Tara, publisher Bonnier Media decided a year ago to start a pilot project with Taraklubben – the Tara Club – to provide subscribers with something extra. And now the club is soon in full swing.

“We sent out a first newsletter and a member site will be up before the summer,” says Lise-Marie Vasbø, commercial director at Bonnier Media. “When that’s ready, we’ll start promoting it in different channels, both online and in our magazines. And it will also be a benefit we offer in our subscription campaigns.”

Anyone who subscribes to Tara is eligible, all it takes is activating the membership by logging in to the Tara Club page. “Members will get good deals – discounts on products and services – as well as access to exclusive events, separate editorial material and even “recipes” for club theme nights that readers can have with their girlfriends, with food and wine.”

The goal of the club is to increase the lifetime of the magazine, and one indication of its success will be how much subscribers take advantage of it. 

“It will also give us a unique opportunity to become better acquainted with our subscribers by seeing what benefits they use most,” says Vasbø. “The biggest challenge right now is that many of the partners we want to have in the club have their own loyalty clubs.”

It’s important that the club has more than just good deals, says Vasbø, so club members will also be getting tailored editorial content plus access to popular events, including some just for them. “We will constantly seek what members are most interested in and offer this,” she says. “At the beginning we will be testing a lot to see what works best.”

Bonnier Media hopes to quickly launch more loyalty clubs for its magazines, based on its experience with the Tara Club and not least to give new experiences for other audiences and develop even more loyal subscribers.

Bonnier Corporation just sold its biggest magazine, Parenting, along with a number of other titles, as well as trading titles with Source. What’s the thinking behind this?
Our sole goal has been to move Bonnier Corporation to a level of sustained profitability. While Parenting was our largest title in terms of revenue, the brand had not made money since 2007. We did not see a clear path to profitability for this brand, and competition was fierce both in print and in digital.

The other moves were of a similar nature. Bonnier Corporation is now well positioned to generate sustained profits.

Why the TransWorld trade — aren’t those titles just as vertical/niche as the motorcycle titles? What about other titles that don’t fit into the “men’s” niche, like Saveur, Working Mother or Islands?
Our strategic brand positioning is not about niche, vertical or men’s brands. Our goal is to be number one or number one and two in any market we operate in. TransWorld is a great brand, and several of the titles within that brand were number one in their respective markets (TransWorld Snowboarding, TransWorld Motocross). In our view, however, we did not see the ability to “own” the action-sports market. Source (which purchased TransWorld), along with nonpublishing entities, such as Red Bull, make the action-sports market extremely competitive.

The purchase of the nine motorcycle brands from Source positions us as the clear leader in the motorcycle market. In addition, the transaction added USD 2 million of profit in 2013 alone.

You’ve said that getting profitable is your biggest goal just now — aside from selling or closing titles, how else do you aim to do this?
Ultimately, we have to grow revenues. We see 2014 as the year that we do that. Our goal will be to grow revenues by 4 percent organically and find opportunistic brand extensions and/or acquisitions that will represent another 4 percent of growth. Revenue growth, along with disciplined operation of the business, will yield sustained profits.

Other than profitability, what’s your biggest challenge just now? Biggest opportunity?
Our biggest challenge now is to change our orthodoxies. Our industry has changed significantly over the past five years and will continue to change at an exponential pace. We must move away from accepted norms and beliefs that worked a decade ago.

Our biggest opportunity is to become a company with revenue growth and sustained profits. This will fuel continued growth, retention and acquisition of the best staff, and reinvestment into the business.

When Barbara Ostrup started working at German book publisher Piper Verlag, one of the things she appreciated about the company was that it was part of an international group that had an exchange program. “It’s nothing you can take for granted if you work for a publishing house,” Ostrup says. So it’s no surprise that when the positions for GROW in 2013 were announced, she jumped at the chance. “It seemed to be a great opportunity to combine my interest in the digital world with the possibility to gain work experience abroad.”

What Ostrup got with the GROW experience was not just a chance to get to know and learn from new colleagues, but also to step back and get a new perspective on her own work. “And get new inspiration,” she says.

At Piper, she works as online marketing manager, responsible for the corporate website as well as organizing online marketing campaigns and social media activities for the books. At Bonnier Publications, Ostrup is working with setting up a new tool to analyze the monthly budget – crunching numbers for 32 websites, which consists of eight magazine brands in four languages each. “At Piper, my daily work is based on the content I work with, the books that are published,” she says. “At Bonnier Publications, it’s mostly based on key numbers and how to handle them in Excel, which is quiet fun and will be interesting to take back with me for my work at Piper.”

While she will miss her co-workers who made her GROW experience so easy – “it is a pleasure to be part of a department with such a great atmosphere” – the city of Copenhagen and country of Denmark have made a big impression on her as well.

“Thankfully I brought my bicycle with me, so I can go on bike rides along the seaside or in the countryside. I will miss the easy and relaxed atmosphere of Copenhagen, the cozy cafés, beautiful parks and comfortable cycling lanes, which are often like small streets beside the car lanes.”

Staff at Sweden’s favorite food magazine, Allt om Mat, are always on the lookout for how to broaden and strengthen the brand. So with the popularity of home-delivered dinner kits, which have been a hit since they first appeared in Sweden in 2007 and are now catching on across Europe and even in the U.S., it made sense for the magazine to tap into the trend. Which is what they’re doing, teaming up with Middagsfrid, the global pioneer who started it all, to create Allt om Mat’s own dinner kits, Allt om Mat-kassen.

“At Allt om Mat, we have a thorough knowledge and extensive experience with preparing food and ingredients,” says Mona Johansson, editor-in-chief for the magazine. “We have a huge bank of recipes that our staff have created over the years that we can use, and all our dishes have been tested so we know they can be prepared in a kitchen at home. All of which we can use to offer a high-quality dinner kit that you can trust.”

The logistics and actual service are carried out by Middagsfrid, while Allt om Mat provides the recipes, chooses the ingredients as well as a written contents description in a weekly bulletin that comes with the delivery of the dinner kits, all of which is laid out and designed by Allt om Mat to fit with the brand. “There’s of course a lot of work for us in creating the kits, so we have brought in someone to work with it on a project basis,” says Johansson.

The selected ingredients will be top-class, says Johansson, with at least 25 percent organically grown and all the fruits and vegetables will be seasonal. The fish will come from seas that have not been overfished and will be guaranteed not to be on endangered lists, while the meat will be from Sweden. Each kit will include three dinners for four people, plus a fourth more upscale meal for Friday. The service will be available starting in August.

“We’ll be marketing the new service with ads in Allt om Mat and a number of other magazines from Bonnier Tidskrifter. The goal for us is to not just increase awareness of the magazine and strengthen our brand, but to increase sales. Naturally, we also hope it ends up in more subscriptions for the magazine as well!”

Find out more at www.alltommatkassen.se (in Swedish).

Almost exactly three months ago, the winners of the Bonnier Sales Awards were announced at a gala dinner and ceremony in Stockholm. We caught up with Lise Hjertaas, CEO of medical journal Dagens Medisin in Norway and winner of the Sales Manager of the Year Award.

How is your year going so far when it comes to your sales and sales team?

The year at Dagens Medisin Norway has started out very well. We have had good sales with thick issues so everyone is looking forward to the summer to have a nice and well deserved break, before we kick off again in August. I am proud of everyone and proud to be part of our small team. Our biggest challenge is the recruitment market and trying to get the advertisers to see the value on our platforms both online and in print. We have done some strategic changes both with a new portal, www.helsekarriere.no, and also a new job section in our newspaper. Hopefully this will give us some more market share in this section in the future.

How has winning the Sales Manager of the Year award affected you?

It was a euphoric moment for me in Stockholm, I am sure everyone who has seen the video can understand it came as a surprise! I am of course proud, the acknowledgement that was given me and the nomination from Anders Ericsson was very much highly appreciated. It was great fun when I came back to the office on Monday March 18. The team played ABBA with “the winner takes it all” and gave me flowers and wine, so I felt the celebration went on after the surrealistic and fantastic event at City Hall in Stockholm. It is an honor to hold the title, and a lot to live up to.

Any exciting changes in store for Dagens Medicin during 2013?

We are focusing on our main business also this year, but we have some small new launches with a quiz on our website and also maybe some live video, DMTV, starting in the fall.

U.K. book publisher Bonnier Publishing is the first publisher in almost 50 years to have one of their authors and illustrators scoop both CILIP medals with separate books in the same year. The CILIP Carnegie Medal and the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal, given out by Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, are the U.K.'s oldest and most prestigious awards for children's and young adult books.

Author Sally Gardner won the CILIP Carnegie Medal for Maggot Moon published by Hot Key Books, and illustrator Levi Pinfold won the CILIP Kate Greenway Medal for Black Dog published by Templar Publishing. Both publishers are part of Bonnier Publishing.

This is the second time Templar Publishing has won the CILIP Greenaway Medal in two years. In 2011 it was for Farther by Grahame Baker-Smith.

"The last time a publisher had an author and illustrator win these prestigious awards in the same year was almost 50 years ago, and we are therefore extremely proud to have these two wonderful books as part of our lists," says Richard Johnson, CEO of Bonnier Publishing. "I believe this now shows Bonnier Publishing's considerable strength in publishing in the U.K. and commitment to working with the very best authors and illustrators."

With the recent reports in the Guardian and the Washington Post that the National Security Agency of the U.S. has been monitoring foreign e-mail and private social media channels, not only has the revelation been in the top of the news nearly everywhere but the topic of whistleblowing has been on everyone’s lips.

For Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter (DN), making sure that readers can send in tips in a secure way is nothing new. “Tips from readers are one of the most important raw sources for a newspaper and have often been crucial in getting investigations underway,” says Mattias Carlsson, one of the reporters at Dagens Nyheter  responsible for the paper’s DN Granskar initiative, which was started last fall as a new channel to accept news tips from people with sensitive information who want to remain anonymous.

“DN Granskar gives readers the opportunity to leave information to the paper without needing to send a mail or reveal who they are, which increases security,” says Carlsson. “The security has been tested many times and all information is encrypted, plus only a restricted number of people from the paper have access to the tips.”

It’s a classic way of doing reporting – the tips can result in a new investigative series or help fill in part of the bigger picture of an existing piece - but with a modern twist for the digital age, where security is a lot more complicated.

“The battle for the best news tips is just as important as the battle for readers,” says Carlsson. “Dagens Nyheter’s extremely good credibility means that we can compete successfully for the best information against top investigative shows like Uppdrag Granskning from Swedish Television and Radioleaks. And we have an obligation to provide our whistleblowers with legal protection, and that means having as secure a system as possible.”