Vísir

What is Vísir?

Vísir is the news site of Sýn hf., a telecommunications and media company. Sýn describes the site on its own home page with the words “Vísir er mest lesni fréttamiðill landsins og sameinar alla miðla Sýnar.” The first half of that sentence is the company's claim about its own product and is not adopted here; the second half describes the site's role inside the group.^[1]

Sýn's annual accounts for 2025, approved on 26 February 2026, state that “Sýn hf. veitir einstaklingum, fyrirtækjum og opinberum aðilum þjónustu í gegnum vörumerkin SÝN, SÝN+, SÝN Sport, Vísi, Bylgjuna, FM957, X977 og Já.” The same accounts give the company's largest shareholders at 31 December 2025 as Gavia Invest ehf. with 18.2%, Gildi lífeyrissjóður with 15.9% and Skel fjárfestingafélag hf. with 10.1%, and state that “Fjöldi ársverka í lok árs voru 393 samanborið við 422 árið 2024”.^[2]

When Sýn merged its television brands under its own name, Vísir reported on 12 June 2025 that “SÝN Sport er nýtt heiti á Stöð 2 Sport”, and that “Útvarpsstöðvarnar Bylgjan, FM957 og X977 halda sínum nöfnum óbreyttum sem og fréttamiðillinn Vísir”.^[8]

What does Vísir cover?

Vísir's sport section sits at visir.is/f/sport. Its sub-sections, as retrieved, were football, Icelandic football, English football, handball, basketball, NFL, golf, the Champions League, Formula 1, athletics, MMA and NBA, with separate pages for the Besta deild karla and kvenna in football, the Bónus-deild karla and kvenna in basketball and the Olís-deild karla and kvenna in handball.^[3] One handball item on the section carried the date 23 September 2026.^[3]

The site also publishes the group's television listings. On 18 September 2026 it listed three matches of the women's Besta deild on the channels Sýn Sport Ísland, Sýn Sport Ísland 2 and Sýn Sport Ísland 3, Brentford against Chelsea on Sýn Sport, Bayern Munich against Union Berlin on Sýn Sport Viaplay and the BMW PGA Championship on Sýn Sport 4.^[4]

Vísir reported on 22 July 2025 that “Sýn sport hefur tryggt sér sýningarréttinn frá keppnistímabilinu 2025/26 til 2027/28” for the Premier League, and that “Enski boltinn snýr aftur á miðla Sýnar” the following month.^[5]

How large is Vísir's audience?

No outlet-level audited figure for visir.is could be retrieved. Gallup á Íslandi announced on 29 December 2015 that it had begun measuring the use of online media in Iceland, in cooperation with comScore, and named visir.is among the participating sites; the metrics were users, visits and page views, with results to be published weekly.^[6]

Gallup's page on its web rankings now names Kilkaya, formerly Linkpulse, as its measurement partner, and states that “Gallup birtir vikulega topplista yfir notkun á mældum miðlum á heimasíðu sinni, www.topplistar.gallup.is.”^[7] That rankings site could not be retrieved, so no weekly reading for visir.is is given here.

The owner's own statement, that Vísir is the most-read news medium in the country, names no measuring body or period on the page as retrieved, and is reported as the company's claim.^[1]

Since when has Vísir existed?

No founding date for the site could be retrieved from Sýn's own pages. The site's measurement history is dated: visir.is was among the sites named when Gallup's online measurement began on 29 December 2015.^[6]

The group's television news ended on 31 August 2026. Sýn announced that day: “Sýn hefur ákveðið að hætta framleiðslu og útsendingu sjónvarpsfrétta frá og með 1. september 2026.” It gave as its ground that “Ákvörðunin er tekin í ljósi breyttra neysluvenja almennings þar sem sífellt fleiri sækja sér fréttir og fréttatengt efni á stafrænum miðlum”, and stated that “Sýn mun því beina auknum krafti að fréttaþjónustu á Vísi og Bylgjunni og leggja áherslu á að miðla fréttum þar sem eftirspurn eftir fréttaefni er mikil.”^[9] The announcement also cited Statistics Iceland: “Samkvæmt tölum Hagstofu Íslands rann 51% auglýsingafjár á Íslandi til alþjóðlegra tæknirisa árið 2024.”^[9]

Why does Vísir matter in Iceland's sport?

It is the news site of the company that holds Premier League rights in Iceland for 2025/26 to 2027/28, as it reported itself, and it publishes that company's sport listings.^[5][4]

It gives a standing page to the top divisions in football, basketball and handball, for both men and women.^[3]

It is the news outlet on which its owner said, on ending television news, that it would concentrate its news service, together with Bylgjan.^[9]

And it is part of the country's online audience currency, having been among the sites named at the start of Gallup's measurement in 2015.^[6]