Finns phone it in
Country tests digital delivery over mobiles, expands digital reach
"The pilot will be very interesting for us, in terms of new streams of revenue, including the opportunity to launch pay per view services for mobile phone users," added Louhelainen.
Meanwhile, Finland plans to expand its digital terrestrial TV services to reach the 99.9% of the entire population of the country, up from 72%.
The extended reach, set to be completed by end 2005, is expected to push into high gear the sale of digital transmitters in the territory which have been sluggish at best since the digital terrestrial platform was launched several years ago. Some 94% of the country is expected to be covered by August 2004.
Finnish auds have never been convinced of the need to go digital; as of August 2003, only 6% of all Finnish households had digital decoders, but this year has seen the price of set-top boxes drop at least 50%, fueling rapid demand despite the fact that only a handful of extra channels are available on digital that aren't on analog. Demand is also being pushed by the Finnish government's plans to phase out analog entirely in 2007.
Channel Four Finland's managing director Juha-Pekka Louhelainen said that the expansion of the network is a big boost for his outlet. While Finnish public broadcaster YLE and national commercial channel MTV3 have always had national coverage in analog, commercial web Channel Four, which launched a few years ago, has only had an 85% reach, at best. There are 10 digital channels on three multiplexes shared among YLE, MTV3 and Channel Four.
