Television in Finland:
Pal-B/G, Digital, Channels, Finnish TV Licence, Programmes

General
Digital TV
Finnish Television Licence
Channels
TV Programmes for Finland
Additional Information

Pal B/G System
Finland uses the Pal B/G TV system, so if you plan on bringing a TV, DVD player/recorder, VCR, or video cassettes with you, make sure they are compatible first! You can check systems at the World TV System & Voltage Guide.

Scart
In Finland virtually all audio-visual (AV) equipment comes with SCART inputs and outputs. To connect new AV components with components you've brought from overseas you may require SCART connectors. If your components don't have them, you CAN purchase adaptors! Verkkokauppa and Biltema both have a good selection and offer online purchase and delivery.

Digital TV

Television broadcasts in Finland were transformed to digital broadcasts on 31st August 2007, meaning you can no longer view TV without a digibox¹ or a digitv².
¹digibox, or "set top box" - a digital receiver for use with an analogue TV.
²digitv, or "digital television" - a television with an integrated digital receiver.

Coverage area
The digital television network covers about 99.9 % of the population in Finland, so satellite TV has not become popular at this stage. Channels and other services are gathered into so called "multiplexes", but more commonly referred to as "cable packages" or similar.The amount of "basic" channels available varies slightly in different parts of Finland.

Further Information: http://www.digitv.fi (English/Finnish/Swedish)

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Finnish Television Licence

If you're Australian or American, you won't like this concept; Finland has television licence fees! When you start using a TV set, you must notify the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority, FICORA, of it. On the basis of this notification, the authority will send you a television fee invoice.

The obligation to pay the TV Licence fee occurs regardless of how you receive TV broadcasts, such as:

• via a digital television or television with a digital set-top box
• via a satellite receiver
• via mobile television
• via the computer.

You can pay the television fee in one-month, three-month, six-month or twelve-month instalments, by contacting FICORA by phone or e-mail, or by completing a form available at post offices or online. You can also arrange regular payment though your online bank.

Note: You must contact Ficora, and let them know about your television before you begin to use it!

Further Information &Online Notifications ( www.tv-maksu.fi ):
English   Finnish   Swedish

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Channels

Additional TV channels have become available with the introduction of digital broadcasting. As of October 2011 you have access to 13 "basic" channels, comprising 5 government and 8 private channels, without subscribing to additional packages. The government channels include YLE TV1, YLE TV2, YLE Teema, TV Finland and YLE FST5 (Swedish). Private network channels include MTV3, Nelonen 4, SubTV, JIM, The Voice, LIV, AVA and SuomiTV. While these 13 channels are 'free', a TV licence is required in Finland.

The quality of programming on Finnish TV is high regardless of tight budgets. Like England and Australia, the government channels tend to broadcast more 'high-brow' content than the commercial stations, such as news and documentaries. The commercial stations show recently released series, movies etcetera, although you may not find the latest seasons' episodes available. The level of foreign content is high.

Finland has not adopted the practice of broadcasting dubbed versions of programmes; all shows are broadcast in their original languages, with Finnish sub-titles. This has undoubtedly aided the Finns' remarkable language abilities, as well as making life easier for non-Finnish speakers!

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TV Programmes for Finland

TVGUIDO

TVGUIDO covers most of the Finnish channels, and is unusual in that it displays TV programmes with their original names rather than the Finnish translations; very handy indeed! 18 channels are currently listed (mid-2010) and the schedule covers the next 7 days. . Go to www.tvguido.com

Telkku

Telkku provides an excellent TV programme service for all stations, including cable operators. Programmes are available for the next 14 days. The site is in Finnish, but if you click any programme a pop-up box will appear which shows the original language name of the show as well as the Finnish name. Movies are highlighted in bold.

To find programmes at Telkku for channels other than the main 5 shown on the front page, place your mouse over the 'Peruskanavat 1' button, then highlight/click the list you would like to expand. Go to Telkku

Individual Channels:

Programmes can also be found from the individual TV stations' Web sites; if these links don't take you direct to the programme pages, look for a button that says Ohjelmat, Ohjelmaopas or similar.

YLE (all channels)   MTV3   Nelonen   SubTV   JIM

Movie Reviews

Once you've obtained the original movie name from Telkku, the Internet Movie Database, more widely known as IMDB, is the #1 site for movie reviews. Rotten Tomatoes is also pretty good.

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