First of all could you explain how your Drama department is run?
Tuire Lindström: I have been Head of Drama for the last three years. I’m in charge of the in-house TV and radio Drama department. On a permanent basis I have 40 people in my department and three executive producers working very close to me: Liselott Forsman in charge of International Projects, Satu Kurvinen, handling Media contacts, and Sirpa Bertling working from our Tampere office. Then separate from our in-house department, we have two Commissioning Editors, Olli Tola and Erkki Astala. They report to Ismo Silvo, Media Director while I report to Ville Vilen, Creative Director.
What’s the share of in-house/outsourced productions?
TL: The share is 50/50 between dramas produced in-house and outsourced productions including Swedish and acquired international drama.
What are your TV Drama slots at YLE?
TL: We have two main drama slots, one on TV1 Sunday 21.00 and the other on TV2 Wednesday 21.00. Then we have a serial family drama slot for New day (Uusi päivä) that comes three times a week and a comedy slot.
What are the specific profiles of TV1 and TV2?
TL: TV1 is for the 40+ audience and TV2 is targeting the younger audience. So for each drama concept, we try to think which channel it should go to. With higher profile dramas, such as crime series for instance, TV1 would theoretically be the best place to show them.
At a time when DR, NRK, SVT are thriving both domestically and internationally, do you feel pressured to emulate their success?
TL: For us it’s a bit different from the rest of Scandinavia. We have several slots to produce for while the other Nordic countries have one or two slots to fill. It’s a different game plan.
My main strategy for Drama is to be versatile. Some stories are made just for one episode, or three, or ten. We have the luxury of taking all kind of stories for our Drama department. Of course the emphasis these days is on long runners, but we don’t neglect shorter dramas. So we still have TV movies and mini-series. Then we have the huge serial drama three times a week with approximately 100 episodes a year.
Each year, how many hours of long runners/comedies/serial dramas do you produce?
TL: This year we produced approximately 80 hours of TV drama. This means that we have one TV movie, two minis series and 98 episodes of serial dramas, plus three serial dramas of six episodes. This year we also had one comedy of 12 episodes. Then once a year we co-operate with the Finnish National Theatre in Helsinki and film a stage play. Theatre is very popular in Finland. It’s a reuniting experience for the entire country to watch a play from Helsinki.
In terms of funding, what is your annual budget and how does that compare to YLE’s overall budget?
TL: Our budget varies a bit each year. In 2013, our in-house drama budget was €14 million. Commissioning Editors have budget of approximately €7 million for outsourced productions. Our entire Drama budget which also includes Swedish and international drama is around €30.1 million. This represents around 6-7% of YLE’s overall budget.
What recent dramas have been the most popular on YLE?
TL: Whenever well-known in-house directors Matti Ijäs, Heidi Köngäs or Tapio Piirainen make TV movies, we tend to get good ratings. Two drama series have had excellent ratings. One is called Northern Lights (Taivaan tulet) by Kari Väänänen. It’s a traditional drama set in Lapland/Northern Finland, about how smaller cities face hardship situations – unemployment, tough nature environment. It has almost 800,000 viewers weekly.Then we had another one that reached almost one million viewers. It was Devil’s Fields (Pirunpelto) directed by Jukka Mäkinen. It had a similar story, about communities and small businesses in Finland trying to survive when everything changes around them. The stories, deeply rooted in our culture unfortunately don’t travel that well.
You seem to say that your TV dramas are director-driven. Aren’t you also trying to get the focus on storytelling and develop good scriptwriters and show-runners that could apply their vision on the entire shows?
TL: We know that we need show runners like in the rest of Scandinavia and in the US. So far our dramas have been mostly director-driven. But in a near future, we are going to give more space to writers to bring another dimension to drama series. This means that in 2014 our entire Drama department (combining in-house and outsourced productions) will invest more in script development and almost double our budget. It will be around €1.6 million for in-house/external development. I believe this will be a strong signal for writers that will show them that we are putting more emphasis on them. This is a big commitment.
We do feel the pressure from other Nordic countries that are very successful internationally. I have been in charge of Drama three years now. I feel we are getting there but it takes time. Other countries have been doing it for 10-15 years. We haven’t before felt the urge to widen the scope of our TV dramas because we had good ratings. The language problem is there but what the Danish dramas have done is breaking the language barriers internationally. This is not a real issue now compared to five years ago. The Danes have done a good job in opening the international market for other Nordic TV dramas. We now have to prove we can deliver similar quality dramas.
Are you tempted to concentrate your funds on flagship dramas/fewer projects to raise the quality of the shows instead of spreading the money on more projects?
TL: That’s my hardest job. I wish I could put more money on high profile dramas, but one of my priorities is still to fill the various slots we have.
What current YLE productions (in-house and outsourced projects) have a chance to travel?
TL: I’m very hopeful for our latest TV movie Middle of the Road (Puolin ja toisin) about loyalty and greed, directed by our renowned TV director Matti Ijäs. It’s a typical Finnish black comedy about contractors asked to build a road out of nowhere, cutting through forests by the Russian border. It has just been aired on YLE TV1 on November 17.
Our 6x50’ series Tellus is a high profile ecological thriller with a universal theme. It’s an in-house production written and directed by JP Siili. It will be broadcasted in 2014 Yle TV1. The 3x50’ series The Limit is based on a best-selling novel written by Riikka Pulkkinen about different women’s roles in society. Among the major actresses are Maria Heiskanen and Kaija Pakarinen. It will air on YLE TV1 in February 2014.
We have two in-house TV movies coming up during 2014, Good purposes (Hyväntekijä) directed by Heidi Köngäs and Left and Right (Vasen oikea, oikea vasen) directed by Tapio Piirainen). One of our seasonal drama series is about to start on Sunday; it is a political family drama named Man of the people (Kansan mies) commissioned by Olli Tola. Olli has also commissioned a drama series on hospital life – produced by Yellow Film & TV. We have a few crime series in development.
How would you like cooperation with other Nordic public broadcasters to improve?
TL: YLE Sweden (FEM) is specialised in airing Nordic TV series, but our own shows don’t travel much. They remain a bit too local. We are aware we have to change this and bring our TV dramas to a higher international level. Again, this is why we have upped our development budget. In terms of co-productions, we have good connections and some co-operation, but I do hope we will do more and deeper co-operation in a very near future. This is one of my priorities as well.