DV claims the figures come from a survey carried out by the research centre at Bifrost University on behalf of the media advertising and planning agency AM Media. According to DV, the number of Morgunbladid subscribers has fallen from 40,000 to 30,000.

Morgunbladid publisher Oskar Magnusson hit back hard, saying that the number of ex-subscribers is nothing like as high as DV make out. “This news is nowhere near the truth – and that is pretty much universal for DV’s coverage of Morgunbladid,” he said.

Bifrost University sources confirmed that the survey was carried out exactly as DV reported; but that the data collected is the property of AM Media. Bifrost’s Njordur Sigurdsson stated with apparent certainty that wherever DV sourced its figures, it was not from Bifrost University.

AM Media meanwhile says it does not intend to make the results public, at least for the time being. The media uptake data is collected for AM Media as a tool for deciding advertising costs.