| Finnish
Broadcasting Co
www.yle.fi
MTV3
Finland
www.mtv3.fi
paul.keskinen@mtv3.fi
Nelonen
Channel 4
www.nelonen.fi
pirjoairaksinen@nelonen.fi
YLE
www.yle.fi
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Finland (5,194,901)
Public TV appeared
in 1958 on 1st January, under the banner of YLE, which
added a second channel in 1964. In the private sector, MTV-3 Finland
was already in existence in 1957 (with a remit to support YLE), and
even up to 1992 it was in charge of YLE windows.
1987 saw the advent of a third
channel, which was taken over lock, stock and barrel by MTV in 1997.
In 1993 all Finnish commercial TV was shunted over to MTV-3, and Channel
Four Finland (privately owned) was aired from 1997. Present ownership
is the Sanoma WSOY group (91% stake) and the TS group (9%).
In 2001 the above-mentioned
four channels enjoyed 94% of market share, with satellite TV accounting
for 3% and cable only 1% of the total. In households equipped with
cable, 7% of received broadcasts were of satellite channel origin.
Roughly 42% of households are
plugged into cable networks. Digital terrestrial (72% penetration)
appeared in 2001; extra channels include YLE-24 (news), YLE Teema
(culture, education, science), FST (YLE ins Swedish), Subtv (regional),
Urheilukanava (sport) and Wellnet (lifestyle).
Regional TV is small, with
television Tampere, När-TV and
KRS-TV the only players. You can get SVT Europa from Sweden in southern
Finland, and both SVT
channels are available on the west coast.
YLE is bigger on children’s
and factual content, and commercial TV in Finland is anything
but culturally-inclined, although foreign fiction does feature. YLE
produces 41% of its own output, and 9% of
broadcasts are in Swedish.
In 2001 YLE’s analogue broadcasts
comprised 9% originating in the US, 13% from
the UK, 6% from Scandinavia/Iceland,
10% from elsewhere in Europe and 5% from
elsewhere, period. For MTV, 29% were from the States, and for Channel
Four Finland this figure was 50%.
Pay-TV is unpopular, but general
viewing has increased by 70% over 12 years.
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Public
YLE TV-1 22.8%
YLE TV-2 20.5%
Total
43.2%
SVT Europa, SVT-1, SVT-2 (retransmissions
of Swedish TV) 1.2%
Private
MTV-3
9.1%
Channel Four Finland 11.6%
Satellite 3.1%
Cable
1.2%
Other
0.5%
Source:
Television-meter survey, Finnpanel – YLE/Audience research, 2001)
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