Top viewers, collapse and doc ecstasy

Let’s put a classic argument straight: “Nobody watches Finnish television, not at least on top of weekend entertainment and sports. Nowadays everybody watches only YouTube and Netflix. “

Mumbo jumbo. Last year 66% off Finnish people watched traditional TV. 87% of the population watches TV weekly. Traditional TV is watched as much as before. For example, last year an episode of The Redneck Auction including reruns, gathered an audience of one and a half million. Furthermore, the contents are watched more and more through digital channels. And many times, it’s the same content on both. Let’s take a normal February Wednesday from a few weeks back, week 8. A thing we did for MTV You Are What You Eat and series for Channel Four, The Night Patrol 2020 and Finland's Biggest Crime Mysteries reached all in all with a TV and online TV services almost 1.4 million people. And that was largely the target group difficult to reach and according to the widely held erroneous belief doesn’t consume Finnish TV content. Some watched these traditionally on Wednesday. Others recorded. While still some others viewed it from CMore or Ruutu. Last month in Netherlands launched local version of our The Au-Pairs series. There watching traditional linear TV still flourishes. In Finland The Au-Pairs is watched on the spot and at one go from Yle Areena when it’s broadcasted. How much of this digital transition is about the content and how much about the popularity of the service? There is no other country in the world that I know of where national broadcasting company internet service is more popular than Netflix. When the platform is in order, people do not go to global competitors, but transfer from linear to domestic digital service. We won’t see as much individual peaks in the number of watchers as we used to, but there will be more top viewers in our midst. They want more content; they watch old stuff and try new. We have to keep domestic content addictive and interesting.

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In the 2020’s there is buying, selling and wipe-outs in the Media world weekly. Just last week a former partner of ours KEW media collapsed. Our story with KEW Media went like this. The former partner of Aito Media, Content Media was sold to KEW Media in 2017. After two months cooperation we realised that the new culture was not for us. To put a long story short – there was a too big gap in company culture.

We found our current partner, Lagardère Studios, from France. It has been hard to watch the KEW Media closing chapters in the past few months. Many good professional and work friend lost either their money, their job or their reputation. Analysis of the reasons is for somebody else to do. For those interested they may be found e.g. TBI and Deadline.

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The comic relief at the end, crystal ball and betting. We are living the golden era of entertainment and fiction. We do this with passion. Now the document boom is on! It’s here in two years. After having a conversation with both European and American producer colleagues, the picture is clear. There are profiles, (crime)mysteries and disassembling of topical phenomena in the making. Netflix made those attractive. Now they work both in traditional and digital watching. The top viewers want much of this in the near future. I’m willing to bet on that. Anyone?

Ilkka Hynninen Founder | Producer | Co-CEO