Finnish Media and Communication System - Current Issues About TV in Finland

CURRENT ISSUES ABOUT TV IN FINLAND

Some of the current debates on Television in Finland today can be briefly described as: the process of shifting to digital TV, tabloidization, and versatile content in programming.

Finland has started digital broadcasting in August 2001, and it is expected that by the end of the year 2006 analogue programming shall finish. However, the audience seem to resist the idea by refusing to buy the necessary equipment (digi-boxes and digi-TV sets), that is necessary to view the digital programming. Pertti Näränen's article on digital TV will take you into these discussions over digital TV, which is a current issue not only in Finland but all around the world.

Tabloidization is a term derived from tabloid newspapers. Because of market forces some quality papers started to compete with tabloids to get more audiences. That, in return, caused a shift towards more popular journalism. In the meantime, the tabloids became quality tabloids as SanomaWSOY describes its tabloid paper Ilta Sanomat. The competition between commercial channels and public service channels over the audience brought new programme profiles and the claim that quality programmes are becoming more and more tabloid-like, not very serious and entertainment oriented. In her article, after introducing the reader briefly to the TV structure and its history in Finland, Minna Aslama is discussing whether tabloidization means "dumbing down" or "diversification".

As the European societies are recognized to be more and more multicultural, the issue of versatile programming has become problematic, as well. The research on programme versatility has mainly remained on counting the different titles of the programmes, rather than researching the diverse content of programmes. As the minority rights, immigrants', refugees' issues become more and more current issues in the European agenda, addressing small audience groups with diverse programming has also become an issue mainly for public service broadcasters.