The great consensus that gave birth to digital TV

NEWS ANALYSIS

print this

By Teemu Luukka
     
      Does the public want digital television? Can we guarantee that the technology will work? What sort of programming should YLE (The Finnish Broadcasting Company) be showing on its new channels?
      None of these questions were addressed or debated when the government of Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen (SDP) arrived at its decision in principle on the digitalisation of Finnish television on May 8th 1996.
      At the five-hour meeting there was also no discussion on why television broadcasts should go digital in the first place.
     
But then again, why should there have been any? Finland was at the time riding a technology boom powered by the irresistible rise of Nokia.
      The TV-companies, the authorities, and the politicians were firmly of one mind on the necessity of digitalisation and its imediate benefits: digi-TV was believed to bring new jobs and to spawn a new technology sector. To cap it all, Nokia was manufacturing digital decoders (production actually stopped in all quiet in 2005).
     
Back then in the mid-1990s, the high priests of the digital religion included the YLE Director-General Arne Wessberg and the broadcaster's TV Development Manager Esa Blomberg, the then CEO and Deputy CEO of the commercial channel MTV3 Eero Pilkama and Jaakko Paavela, the National Coalition Party's Minister of Transport & Communications Tuula Linnainmaa, and the Social Democrats' Jouni Backman.
      When the government made its decision, it had two reports to peruse.
      Jouni Mykkänen, a former YLE director, had compiled a report based on more than 100 interviews, and he justified the changeover to digital broadcasting on three grounds above all.
      Firstly, analogue technology is more greedy for frequency bandwidth than digital, so digitalisation would bring with it the chance of more channels.
      In the second place, viewers' picture quality would improve, and thirdly programming could become interactive, such that the viewers could take part in programme making.
     
Television was even envisaged as becoming the hub for all household communications and access to information.
      "An overly cautious timetable was the only thing for which I received real criticism", says Mykkänen, eleven years on. In his report he estimated for instance that analogue transmissions would continue up to 2009-2014.
     
The Mykkänen report does not contain all of the reasons that were put forward by the power-elite of the time. One such was that it was seen as necessary to develop terrestrial transmissions in Finland, in order to protect against the spread of foreign satellite broadcasting.
      There was even talk of a security risk inherent in the possibility of television broadcasting being in the hands of foreign-owned satellite operators at a time of national crisis. The popularity of the satellite channels was also seen as a potential threat to domestic programme production.
     
From that first decision in May of 1996, it took eight years for the government to resolve to shut down the old-fashioned sparkle-boxes on August 31, 2007.
      At that time there was still a consensus in favour of digitalisation, and the cable-TV companies were also in the vanguard of the project.
      The proposal for the shutdown was made by a working party under Seppo Niemelä of the Ministry of Justice, in association with the government of the day's "Citizen Participation Policy Programme".
      The aim was to close down the analogue network "as soon as possible". These four words have been repeated over and over again from the very outset of the digital project.
     
The biggest reason behind the haste was money. Niemelä's working party estimated that the shutting down of the analogue network would bring the TV-companies annual savings of around EUR 34 million.
      The members also pondered whether the cable-TV companies should be given the chance to continue a two-track arrangment, with both analogue and digital transmissions, as had happened in Sweden and The Netherlands.
      This discussion dried up abruptly when YLE took the firm stand that according to the law, all of the public broadcaster's programmes (which cable operators also screen as part of a "must-carry" agreement) should be accessible to everyone "on equal terms".
      In other words, it would not be right to offer part of the viewers an analogue service and others a digital one, because among other things the analogue system does not offer digital programme guides on the screen.
     
The consensus continued. Even the Regional Council of Lapland announced that Lapland wanted to be in the front carriages of the digital train, in spite of the fact that the sparsely populated region is riddled with areas where reception will be poor or non-existent after the end of August.
      The striking unanimity of the decision-makers has brought us to a situation where it looks as if Finland will become the first country in the world where antenna and cable television services alike will be forcibly digitalised across the entire country.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 27.8.2007

More on this subject:
 Switch to digital television will darken Toini Sanila’s set
 Digital TV brings more channels to Finnish TV screens
 Sharp rise in pay-TV subscriptions

Links:
  DIGI-TV

TEEMU LUUKKA / Helsingin Sanomat
teemu.luukka@hs.fi