Public Service Broadcasting as Cultural Industry: Value Transformation in the Finnish Market-Place

Value transformation in Finland's public service broadcasting company, Yleisradio Oy (YLE), is analysed as a professional market connected with political, popular and open markets. Innovative change in creative tension with traditional continuity informs a transformation dynamic. Prior to the 1990s continuity was a dominant force, but rapid change is characteristic today. The 1994 administrative restructuring was an organizational response to the 1993 Act on YLE, which was formulated in response to increasing media competition viewed as a potential threat to Finnish national culture. The interplay of political policy, organization structure and broadcasting practice indicates a tightly bundled set of concerns that highlight the dialectical, reflexive character of value transformation — a process that arbitrates the need for change with the need for continuity across a multiplicity of antagonistically cooperative markets. The authors conclude that the results explicitly reframe Finnish public service broadcasting as a culture industry.