Broadcasting board chairman neglects TV fee for over a year

Hannu Olkinuora

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Hannu Olkinuora, chairman of the board of the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE, admits that he had neglected to pay his television fee for over a year. YLE gets most of its revenue from the mandatory fees paid by owners of television sets.
      Olkinuora said in a television interview on Friday, that he paid the licence fee in April last year, just a few months before taking on his post at the public service broadcaster.
      Olkinuora moved from Sweden to Finland in 2003, and says that he forgot to pay the fee in the midst of the turmoil of relocation. Before he had moved to Sweden he had a TV licence.
      Olkinuora was asked by the chair of the Administrative Council of YLE, Centre Party MP Mika Lintilä, to join the YLE board in 2005. Lintilä noted on Friday that he had not spoken to Olkinuora about the TV fee issue.
      In Lintilä’s view, Olkinuora can continue in his post.
     
Two members of the Administrative Council, Kimmo Sasi (Nat. Coalition Party) and Riikka Savolainen-Moilanen (Centre) paid the television fees for their second homes only after the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority (FICORA) declared that information on the payment of the fees was a matter of public record.
      Sasi managed for a long time without a television set in his Helsinki apartment, but he later brought a set to Helsinki from Tampere after inheriting it from his mother two years ago. He has a reputation of being a very frugal man.
     
According to FICORA some of the members of the YLE Administrative Council still have not paid a television fee for their second homes. The explanation has been that they do not have a television in Helsinki. They include National Coalition Party members Marja Tiura and Marjukka Karttunen.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnish ministers have paid their TV licence fees (20.10.2006)
  Frightened Finns rush to pay their TV licence fees (19.10.2006)
  Communications authority: TV licence records are public documents (18.10.2006)
  PM urges ministers not to answer questions of minor tax evasion and TV licence fee dodging (16.10.2006)

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