Opportunities for Cooperation between Estonia and ... - Valitsus

In 2005, the number of those watching Finnish TV in Estonia started to fall. The
single most important reason for this was probably Estonia’s own commercial
TV channels – programme choice, films and shows had attained as high a
standard and became as popular as their Finnish counterparts while offering
the additional advantage of being broadcast in Estonian.
Finland’s transition to digital transmissions in September 2007 placed Estonia
in a completely new situation in terms of the reception of the digital signal
from Finland. Today, Estonia is out of range for the digital transmissions from
Finnish television. If the range were to be extended, additional costs would be
incurred in the form of royalties. Because of copyright regulations, the talks
with Estonian cable operators on re-transmitting Finnish TV programmes in the
cable network have been put on hold.
No MTV3 programmes have been available on the Estonian cable network
since the beginning of 2008 and the Channel 4 went off the network in April.
According to a survey made in March when the YLE1 and YLE2 channels were
still available on cable, these channels had 42,000 viewers of whom over
10,000 had a higher university degree.
Compared with earlier times, the situation in Estonia has also changed in a
broader sense. Interest in Finland is clearly declining - something that is not
only due to the phasing out of Finnish TV channels. The former Finnish window
has been replaced by satellite and cable television with their programme
offerings, the Internet, freedom of travel and new personal contacts with the
rest of the world. Fewer and fewer young people entering the labour market
speak Finnish. Most of the people studying Finnish in Estonia do so because of
their work while interest in the language itself and Finnish culture is waning.
Nowadays, the Estonian media is relatively passive towards its northern
neighbours. When reporting on developments in Finland, the media often errs
in facts and interpretation, and there is a superficiality manifesting itself in the
absence of proper context.
In Finland, there are gaps in the knowledge of Estonian conditions even among
people who would be expected to be familiar with its neighbouring country
simply because of their job description, for example, business persons and
journalists. By familiarity with the affairs of a neighbouring country we do
not only mean awareness of what is going on but also deeper understanding
of Estonian society, its geography, history, etc., or an objective picture of the
Russian minority and of crime in Estonia. Considering the close interaction,
knowledge of Estonia in Finland is scant. The opportunities available for
ordinary Finns and decision-makers to update their Estonian facts and learn
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