Digital terrestrial television in Finland

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Digital terrestrial television in Finland was launched on August 21, 2001. The analogue networks continued its broadcasts alongside the digital ones until September 1, 2007, when they were shut down nationwide.

Before the analogue switchoff, the terrestrial network had three multiplexes: MUX A, MUX B and MUX C. MUX A contained the channels of the public broadcaster Yleisradio and MUX B was shared between the two commercial broadcasters: MTV3 and Nelonen. MUX C contained channels of various other broadcasters. After the analogue closedown, a fourth multiplex named MUX E was launched.

All YLE channels are broadcast free-to-air, so are a few commercial ones including MTV3, Nelonen, Subtv, JIM, Urheilukanava and The Voice TV.

In addition the free-to-air broadcasts, two companies are providing encryption cards for pay television: Canal Digital and PlusTV. Canal Digital was the first to launch, originally only offering four Canal+ channels (the Disney Channel was added later on). PlusTV was launched in November 2006, originally only broadcasting MTV3 Max and Subtv Juniori (later on adding Subtv Leffa and Urheilu+kanava). Both packages got more channels with the launch of MUX E in September 2007: SVT Europa and MTV3 Fakta was added to PlusTV and KinoTV was added to Canal Digital, while Discovery Channel, Eurosport, MTV Finland and Nickelodeon were added to both packages.

September 2007 also saw the launch of the SveaTV package in Ostrobothnia which broadcasts Swedish language channels from a special multiplex.

On the digital platform, subtitling isn't a part of the video stream, but is delivered as a separate data stream, which allows subtitling in multiple languages and the option to remove subtitles. Due to technical problems with the subtitles, many people cancelled their television licenses. This meant that YLE had to make drastic budget cuts. The digital channel YLE Extra was closed on December 31, 2007 and was replaced by YLE TV1+, a simulcast of TV1 with subtitles included in the video stream. TV1+ is planned to be replaced by SVT Europa in September 2008.^[1]

[edit] Channels

The followong channels are available in the Finnish digital terrestrial television network:^[2]

Most of the offer is the same througout mainland Finland. There is however a local channel called Turku TV in the Turku area. This channel uses the space allocated to IskelmäTV Harju&Pöntinen, The Voice TV and Urheilu+kanava elsewhere. In Ostrobothnia there is an extra multiplex available which provides encrypted Swedish language channels.^[3]

LCN	Channel	MUX	FTA/Encr.
1.	YLE TV1	A	Free-to-air
2.	YLE TV2	A	Free-to-air
3.	MTV3	B	Free-to-air
4.	Nelonen	B	Free-to-air
5.	YLE FST5	A	Free-to-air
6.	Subtv	B	Free-to-air
7.	Urheilukanava	C	Free-to-air
8.	YLE TV1+	A	Free-to-air
9.	YLE Teema	A	Free-to-air
10.	The Voice TV	C	Free-to-air	Not in the Turku area.
11.	JIM	B	Free-to-air
12.	Urheilu+kanava	C	PlusTV	Not in the Turku area.
13.	MTV3 Max	B	PlusTV
14.	MTV3 Fakta	E	PlusTV
15.	Subtv Leffa	B	PlusTV
16.	Subtv Juniori	B	PlusTV
17.	Discovery Channel	E	PlusTV/Canal Digital
18.	Eurosport	E	PlusTV/Canal Digital
19.	MTV	E	PlusTV/Canal Digital
20.	Turku TV	C	Free-to-air	Only in the Turku area.
21.	Nickelodeon	E	PlusTV/Canal Digital
22.	SVT Europa	E	PlusTV
23.	Big Brother 12/7	E	PlusTV
24.	KinoTV	E	Canal Digital
25.	Disney Channel	C	Canal Digital
26.	Canal+ Film 1	C	Canal Digital
27.	Canal+ Film 2	C	Canal Digital
28.	Canal+ Sport 1	C	Canal Digital
29.	Canal+ Sport 2	C	Canal Digital
30.	Canal 69	C	Canal Digital
51.	IskelmäTV Harju&Pöntinen	C	Free-to-air	Not in the Turku area.
68.	Klubi.tv	C	Free-to-air
69.	Digiviihde	C	PlusTV
70.	SVT1		SveaTV	Only in Ostrobothnia
71.	SVT2		SveaTV	Only in Ostrobothnia
72.	Barnkanalen/Kunskapskanalen		SveaTV	Only in Ostrobothnia
73.	TV3 Sweden		SveaTV	Only in Ostrobothnia
74.	TV4 Sweden		SveaTV	Only in Ostrobothnia
75.	BotniaTV		SveaTV	Only in Ostrobothnia
76.	SveaTV Info		SveaTV	Only in Ostrobothnia
78.	När-TV		SveaTV	Only in Ostrobothnia
79.	KRS-TV		SveaTV	Only in Ostrobothnia