Finnish Broadcasting Company appoints new Director General

Microsoft executive Mikael Jungner seen as surprise choice

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The saga of who will succeed Arne Wessberg as Director-General of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE), Finland’s public service broadcaster, came to an abrupt and surprising conclusion on Tuesday night when the Administrative Council voted to appoint Mikael Jungner, 39, to the position.
      Jungner is at present working for Microsoft Finland as their Director of Information Society Relations, and has previously served as a Parliamentary secretary and special political aide to Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen, now the Speaker of Parliament.
      During Lipponen’s first and second term as PM, Jungner had also assisted two other Social Democrat ministers. His role in Microsoft Finland embraces public relations in Finland and with the Baltic States, with the emphasis both at home and across the Gulf of Finland being on liaison with decision-makers and legislators.
      He is married with one child, and numbers diving among his hobbies.
     
Jungner will join YLE from the beginning of next year and will take over as DG on May 1st, 2005.
      Wessberg will remain in the post until then, and thereafter will be assigned to special functions associated with his existing international commitments. Wessberg was recently re-elected as President of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) for a second two-year term until August 2006. He has headed the Finnish Broadcasting Company since 1994.
      The selection of a successor to 61-year-old Wessberg, who completed his second five-year term in the post already in 2003, descended into something approaching farce six weeks ago. At that time the two-year search for a replacement, led by Administrative Council Chairman Markku Laukkanen (Centre Party), ended in rather public failure after the proposal to appoint the Council’s vice chairman Jouni Backman (SDP) ran up against considerable and unanticipated opposition from Council members (see linked articles).
      Now, however, the Council showed no such indecision, and in addition to the Jungner appointment it also passed a resolution to back funding for the new Music House (see separate article today).
      For Laukkanen, it was a busy end to his career with the Council. He resigned over the Backman incident and the Council will be chaired at its next meeting by Centre Party MP Mika Lintilä.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Wessberg gets one more year as YLE Director-General (4.10.2004)
  Backman withdraws from YLE leadership race (30.9.2004)

Helsingin Sanomat