Finland's AVA Now on Free TV

In mid-January, MTV Media's channel for women, AVA, was launched as a free channel on cable TV in Finland, reaching some 50 percent of the country.

"We originally started AVA as part of our MTV3 mini pay package," says Jorma Sairanen, senior vice president for programming at MTV Media. Soon after that, things changed when competitor Sanoma Corporation launched a similar channel on free TV.

"When the advertising market began to pick up after the short recession, we thought there would be room for our new free channel as well," says Sairanen. AVA was then launched on January 15, 2011 for cable households. The aim is to get a terrestrial license in the future, says Sairanen.

After less than a month, the channel has approximately 100,000 daily viewers and the interest from advertisers has been very positive. "Now we need more viewers, and we believe the figures will be much better by September," says Sairanen. "The profile of the station is automatically good with the present program line up, the target group of women aged 25-54 and the cable penetration which is only in the big cities. A smaller channel like AVA is a good addition to the present free TV portfolio where only big stations like MTV3 and SUB dominate the market."