Arts and Advertising: Aesthetics of Early Commercial Television in Finland

Finnish television was launched by a commercial company in 1956. TES-TV, the first television station, was later followed by a programming company called Tesvisio and joined by the television channel of YLE, the Finnish Broadcasting Company. The TES-TV/Tesvisio years are a unique period in television history, since they witnessed the creation of a connection between commercial television and the arts. In this article I aim to study early Finnish television aesthetics by analyzing television as art and also the relations between television and other art forms. My focus is on the representations of high and low culture and the search for a television style. TES-TV aired both popular programmes and high culture, like ballet, while on Tesvisio, these cultural extremities were gradually replaced by a middle-brow culture. The early programming included both filmed and live material, which had a contribution to the evolution of Finnish television aesthetics. The television style was further developed by Tesvisio’s first professional set designer and his experimental work. Therefore I claim that in these commercial companies television was seen as an art form in its own right, not only as a mediator of art