Morgunblaðið

What is Morgunblaðið?

Morgunblaðið is a newspaper published in Reykjavík by Árvakur hf. The company's own site states that Árvakur “gefur út Morgunblaðið og rekur meðal annars fréttavefinn mbl.is auk útvarpsstöðvana K100 og Retro.”^[1] This page treats the newspaper and its news site as one outlet, and gives the site's domain because the sport section lives on a path of it, mbl.is/sport, rather than on a domain of its own.^[3]

Árvakur's About page lists its shareholders (hluthafar) as Þórsmörk ehf. and Legalis sf., without percentages or a date.^[2] The media regulator's register of owners could not be retrieved, so the list is given as the company prints it.

Reporters Without Borders states in its 2026 entry that “Iceland's media market is characterized by a concentration of media outlets dominated by four groups. After the bankruptcy of a major daily, Iceland now has a single daily, two weeklies, several regional newspapers, and online media outlets.”^[4] The entry, as retrieved, names neither the four groups nor the daily, so no identification is made on its authority here.

What does Morgunblaðið cover?

The sport section of mbl.is is a general one. As retrieved, it carried items on international football, including English Premier League clubs and managers, and on mixed martial arts, alongside domestic handball league tables and fixture lists with match times for the season.^[3]

Árvakur's radio station, K100, sits within the same company as the paper, according to Árvakur's own description of its business.^[1]

How large is Morgunblaðið's audience?

The only outlet-level figures retrieved are the publisher's own. Árvakur states that “Morgunblaðið nær til tæplega 40% landsmanna í hverri viku”, that “Flettingar á mbl.is í viku hverri nema alls 17 milljónum”, and that “K100 nær til 26% fólks á aldrinum 12-49 ára í hverri viku.”^[1] None of the three sentences, as retrieved, names a measuring body or a period, so they are reported as the company's claims and not as audited figures.

A measurement currency does exist. Gallup á Íslandi announced on 29 December 2015 that “Gallup á Íslandi hefur hafið mælingar á notkun netmiðla á Íslandi”, in cooperation with comScore, and named mbl.is among the participating sites; the metrics were users, visits and page views.^[5] Gallup's page on its web rankings now names a different partner: “Gallup á Íslandi er í samstarfi við alþjóðlega netmælingafyrirtækið Kilkaya (áður Linkpulse).” It states that “Gallup birtir vikulega topplista yfir notkun á mældum miðlum á heimasíðu sinni, www.topplistar.gallup.is.”^[6] That rankings site could not be retrieved, so no weekly reading for mbl.is is given here.

Gallup describes the method behind its newspaper figures: “Mælingar á dagblaðalestri fara fram með samfelldri símamælingu þar sem 30 svörum er safnað á dag yfir allt árið.”^[7] Title-level results from that survey are not on Gallup's public pages.

Since when has Morgunblaðið existed?

The founding date is the publisher's claim, and it is attributed here rather than adopted. Árvakur states: “Morgunblaðið kom fyrst út 2. nóvember 1913.”^[1] It also states that “Nýtt félag í Reykjavík, sem litlu síðar fékk nafnið Árvakur hf., festi kaup á blaðinu 1919 og hefur gefið blaðið út síðan.”^[1] Its About page gives the company's own date in the same year: “Árvakur hf., útgáfufélag Morgunblaðsins, var stofnaður 1919.”^[2] No independent source for either date could be retrieved.

The web edition is younger. mbl.is was one of the sites named by Gallup in December 2015 at the start of its online measurement, which dates the site's participation in that currency, not the site's launch.^[5]

Why does Morgunblaðið matter in Iceland's sport?

It is a print-and-web news organisation with a standing sport section and a radio station under the same publisher, per Árvakur's own description.^[1][3]

Its publisher has received state operating support as a private medium. The government's release of 4 November 2023 on that year's allocation under the Media Act, no. 38/2011, lists Árvakur hf. at 107,155,187 krónur, among 25 media granted a total of 470,517,676 krónur.^[8] The provisions of chapter X.B of that Act on support for private media “féllu úr gildi 1. janúar 2026”, and the government states that a bill on a revised support system will be put to the 157th session of Alþingi.^[9]

It is part of the country's audience currency: mbl.is was among the sites Gallup named when it began measuring Icelandic online media in 2015.^[5]

And it publishes the domestic handball season's tables and fixtures within its sport section, not only international football.^[3]