“We Are More Serious”—Children's Television in Finland and Paradigmatic Shifts in Yleisradio's Children's Programming

Abstract

This article examines transformations in the Finnish Broadcasting Company Yleisradio's children's television paradigm and their manifestation in the structure of the company's children's programmes between 1986 and 2009. The period covered by the article saw the liberalisation of broadcasting and the breaking of Yleisradio's de facto monopoly on children's programming in Finnish television. Prior to the liberalisation of broadcasting in Finland, children's television was produced to solid pedagogic standards that stemmed from the powerful Nordic ideal of “good childhood.” Analysis on changes in the structure of Yleisradio's children's output demonstrates that competition from commercial channels following the liberalisation of broadcasting in the 1990s forced Yleisradio to depart to an extent from its traditional paternalist-pedagogic paradigm in children's programming and adopt elements commonly associated with commercial children's television, manifested with a significant increase in the use of populist forms of programming and imported content.