Iltalehti

What is Iltalehti?

Iltalehti is a Finnish evening newspaper and news site published by Alma Media. Alma Media's corporate pages list it among the company's best-known brands in Finland, beside Kauppalehti, Talouselämä, Etuovi.com, Nettiauto and Nettimoto.^[6] Alma Media's advertiser page describes it as “one of Finland's largest news outlets and a versatile lifestyle media platform, reaching millions of Finns every week”.^[1] That is the publisher's description of its own title.

The same page gives the publishing pattern as “digital 7 days + 1 print edition”.^[1] Alma Media's consumer-media page calls Iltalehti “a major Finnish news media outlet that reaches audiences nationwide”, and says that a paid service, Iltalehti Plus, provides subscribers with special articles daily.^[2]

The publisher, Alma Media, gives its own figures for 2025: revenue of 327.1 million euros, a digital share of 85.9 per cent of revenue, and about 1,650 employees.^[6] Those are group figures, not figures for Iltalehti. Alma Media's release of 20 May 2026 states that its share is listed on NASDAQ OMX Helsinki, and describes Iltalehti and the online publication Uusi Suomi as “both part of Alma Media”.^[3] That release dates the ownership described here.

What does Iltalehti cover?

Alma Media's advertiser page states that Iltalehti “blends current news, phenomena, sports, and entertainment into an engaging package that captivates Finns around the clock”.^[1] Sport is named there as one of four strands of the title's content. The consumer-media page adds that news content is among Iltalehti's most popular and that lifestyle content also attracts large audiences.^[2] Both are the publisher's statements.

On 20 May 2026 Alma Media announced that Iltalehti and Uusi Suomi “will combine their online services in autumn 2026”. It stated that Uusi Suomi's political and international content and its Puheenvuoro blog platform would be integrated into Iltalehti and its digital Plus Extra service.^[3] The release says nothing about sport.

Iltalehti's own site refused retrieval. No list of its sports correspondents, of the events it covers or of any broadcast or streaming rights it holds could be retrieved, and none is asserted here. What is documented of its sport is the publisher's description above.

How large is Iltalehti's audience?

Readership in Finland is measured by KMT, the national readership survey run by Media Metrics Finland, which describes itself as the joint audience-measurement expert of the Finnish media industry. Media Metrics Finland announced KMT 2026 on 23 September 2026 and stated that it drew on 23,370 respondents aged over 15 in mainland Finland.^[5]

KMT's weekly-reach column is headed “Painettu 1-7 krt/vko + digi vko”. It counts reading the printed paper one to seven times a week, or using the title digitally in the week. KMT 2026 lists Iltalehti among the other national newspapers and supplements, with a weekly reach of 2,748,700. It gives 127,400 readers of the average printed issue, and 157,400 when the digital facsimile edition is included.^[4] These figures cover the whole title, not its sport pages.

Alma Media's release of 20 May 2026 put it this way: “According to the National Media Survey, Iltalehti reaches approximately 2.7 million people in Finland each week, while Uusi Suomi reaches around 400,000.”^[3] The release does not give the survey year, so KMT 2026 is used here as the current figure. The advertiser page adds that “over 80%” of traffic comes from mobile devices and that app users make up “39%” of total traffic, citing KMT 2025, KMT 2024 and GA 1-5/2025 as its sources without assigning each figure to one.^[1]

Since when has Iltalehti existed?

Alma Media's release of 20 May 2026 states: “Iltalehti was founded in October 1980 as the evening edition of Uusi Suomi.”^[3] On the publisher's account, the title began as an evening edition of another newspaper, and Alma Media has announced that the online publication Uusi Suomi's content will move into Iltalehti in autumn 2026.^[3]

No independent source for the October 1980 date was retrieved, so it is attributed to Alma Media and not adopted. No launch date for Iltalehti's sport section could be retrieved.

Why does Iltalehti matter in Finland's sport?

KMT 2026 gives Iltalehti a weekly reach of 2,748,700. In the same table of other national newspapers and supplements, Ilta-Sanomat has 2,922,800.^[4] KMT prints these as rows; it does not rank them.

Alma Media describes Iltalehti in its interim report for January to September 2025, published on 31 October 2025, as “Finland's largest digital news media”, within its Alma News Media business segment.^[7] That is the publisher's own characterisation, and the report names no measuring body for it. Its advertiser page names sport as one of the title's four strands of content.^[1]

Reporters Without Borders describes Finland's market as including “an increasing number of online news outlets”, and states that traditional outlets “are subject to greater media concentration, without any specific regulation”.^[8] Those are RSF's statements about the Finnish market generally, not about Iltalehti.