Nelonen to get early pay-per-view web access to Disney shows

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In a landmark decision on Monday, the international television arm of movie giant Walt Disney agreed to allow the Finnish commercial broadcaster Nelonen to screen its hit shows on the Internet as pay-per-view, just a few days after the programmes go out in the United States.
      From the beginning of October, visitors to the Nelonen website will be able to stream recent episodes of such popular series as Ugly Betty, Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, and Lost.
      Each episode will cost EUR 3.00 (currently around USD 4.20) to watch, and the price will include watching it up to ten times during a 24-hour period from the moment of purchase.
     
The episodes will come ready subtitled. The actual TV transmissions of the shows in question will not go out until next spring.
      Disney found Finland an attractive proposition, since the country has high broadband penetration, represents a small and relatively homogeneous market, and people here have shown an appetite for legally downloading and paying to watch shows.
     
Pirjo Airaksinen, Nelonen's channel director, said the idea is for the company to see how the public respond to the idea of paying for new material.
      If pay-per-view does not take off in the desired way, it may be possible to have the same arrangement later for free but with commercials, such that the advertiser pays for the service.
      Nelonen, which reaches 2.1 million viewers in Finland, is a part of the SanomaWSOY media group, as is Helsingin Sanomat.


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