MTV3: История финского коммерческого телевидения

Finnish commercial television station
the Finnish terrestrial channel

MTV3 (, MTV Tre) is a Finnish commercial television channel owned and operated by the media company MTV Oy, originally launched in 13 August 1957 as a programming block, becoming its own channel on 1 January 1993. It had the biggest audience share of all Finnish TV channels until Yle TV1 (from Yle) took the lead. MTV actually stands for Mainos TV (literally "Advertisement TV", i. e. "Commercial TV), due to the channel carrying advertising for revenue. Number 3 was added later, when the channel was allocated the third nationwide television channel and it generally became known as "Channel Three"—Finnish Broadcasting Company's Yle TV1 and Yle TV2 being the first two—and also to distinguish it from the later MTV Finland, which is a Finnish version of Paramount's MTV channel. From 1957 until 2001, the channel's logo was a stylised owl, changed to an owl's eye after an image renewal in 2001, which was then used until 2013. MTV3 has about 500 employees. It is also known as Maikkari ( slang for "Mainos TV"). From 1986 to 1993, Kolmoskanava was a precursor to MTV3. It was shut down at midnight on December 31, and MTV3 immediately started broadcasting.

Oy Mainos TV Reklam Ab, or MTV for short, was founded on 29 April 1957 with the idea of establishing a commercial television channel that would show advertisements between programmes. MTV was one of the earliest nationwide private television networks in Europe, preceded only by the ITV network in the United Kingdom and RTL in Luxembourg. MTV's first broadcast was on 13 August 1957. During the early years, MTV was on shaky financial and political grounds. MTV expressed demands that the second channel be given to them, but Yleisradio refused any such attempts, agreeing however to give MTV more air time, even some prime time, on the second channel. This project culminated in 1986 in the launch of a third nationwide channel, Kolmoskanava, which was however free to air. The channel mostly broadcast imports but some original shows were broadcast as well (albeit not produced by the channel). MTV also began broadcasting their programmes on the channel and started to increase their share in the project. By 1990, MTV had a majority share in the channel. MTV3, a merger of MTV and Kolmoskanava, was launched at midnight on 1 January 1993 in a grand launch event. MTV moved all of its programming to MTV3 and stopped leasing blocks from channels one and two, leaving them entirely to YLE and to become the modern channels Yle TV1 and Yle TV2.

MTV Oy was admitted as a full active member of the European Broadcasting Union in 1993, the same year MTV3 was launched. This membership ended in 2019. In 2005 Alma Media sold MTV3 and its sister channels (MTV3+, Subtv, Radio Nova and a share in Urheilukanava) to Swedish company Bonnier, which in turn sold the channel to telecommunications company Telia on 20 July 2018. In late 2022 and early 2023, MTV3 moved its headquarters and studios to its present location at the Fredriksberg D office building in Vallila. The former building at Ilmala was subsequently demolished to make way for apartments.

Marko Terva aho Commentator. Mika Kallio Co commentator. Matti Kiiveri Co commentator. Vesa Kallio Co commentator.