This season’s Finnish premier ice hockey league games available to exceptionally small number of cable-TV subscribers

Antenna-TV customers in better position

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The 2009-2010 season of the SM-Liiga, Finland's premier ice hockey league, gets under way tomorrow, Thursday, but at least the beginning of the season will be a major disappointment for the Helsinki-based friends of TV ice hockey.
      As is customary, most of the games will be televised on a pay-TV channel.
      This time, however, the channel in question is not available for viewing for the subscribers to the capital area’s largest cable-TV operator, Welho.
     
Welho has not got a broadcasting permit for the content of the chargeable URHO-TV channel, which acquired the SM-Liiga screening rights in the spring.
      The newcomer to the field of Finnish pay-TV channels managed to secure the rights until the spring of 2013.
      And the Helsinki-based cable-TV viewers are not the only ones in the country to be left without the possibility of viewing live domestic ice hockey at its highest level.
     
Of the numerous cable-TV operators in Finland, Sonera is the only one that has so far managed to secure the distribution rights to the URHO-TV content.
      Starting from Thursday, Sonera customers can subscribe to the chargeable channel for their viewing pleasure.
      Currently Sonera’s cable network reaches 170,000 Finnish households, which translates to just under 20 per cent of the cable-TV connections in the country.
     
Such a limited distribution of one of the most popular sports in the country is exceptional.
      In all, 44 per cent of Finnish television households are connected to one or another cable network.
      When the SM-liiga screening rights used to belong to the Canal+ pay-TV operator, the subscribing to the Finnish premier ice hockey league games was available to the customers of all of the country’s cable network operators.
     
Those television viewers whose households belong to an antenna network are in a better position.
      Through the PlusTV network, URHO-TV can be subscribed to homes in nearly the entire country, which translates to around a million potential viewers.
      The channel can also be subscribed through the satellite-TV operator Canal Digital.
      Satellite-TV, however, is not found in anything like every home.
     
URHO-TV has announced as its aim to make the SM-liiga matches available for large distribution that will cover the entire country.
      However, the negotiations with various television operators concerning the distribution of the channel have either progressed very slowly or stalled completely.
      Even with Sonera and PlusTV, an agreement was only reached on Tuesday.
      Negotiations are still under way with other operators, and URHO-TV promises new information even later this week.
     
According to Johan Flykt, the President of broadband and cable-TV operator Welho, a lot more activity had been expected from URHO-TV’s part.
      Flykt refuses to comment about which issues the negotiating sides have disagreed on.
      “Some of these issues have already been made public in other contexts”, Flykt drops a hint.
      For one, URHO-TV’s aim to bind its customers to a one-year fixed contract has been a cause of public astonishment.
      The SM-liiga does not last for a full year and yet no information has been released regarding later programming.
      So far, however, the channel is still also being sold for shorter commitment periods.
     
URHO-TV managing director Ahti Leväaho agreed to answer the Helsingin Sanomat questions only through email.
      “URHO-TV only provides distribution contracts that make sense from the commercial point of view”, Leväaho commented on the present subscription situation.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Owner Peter Ekelund has faith in URHO-TV (23.6.2009)

Links:
  URHO-TV
  Welho
  SM-Liiga (Wikipedia)

Helsingin Sanomat