TV4 (Sweden)
As a part of its public service obligations, TV4 has to broadcast regional programmes. When the regional stations were set up they were owned by both local investors and TV4 themselves. Since the start of TV4 Uppland in 1996, the number of stations has been sixteen. Although some stations have been closed and some new set up, the total number of stations has stayed unchanged.
Eventually TV4 started buying the stations and became the sole owner of fifteen of the stations in 2001. The only independent station, TV4 Fyrstad, went bankrupt in 2003 and after the start of its replacement, TV4 Väst, TV4 owned all the stations. Later on they started merging them, first into five regional company and since 2004 they are a part of a single company: TV4 Sverige AB.
As of 2007, these are the local TV4 stations:
- TV4 Värmland
- TV4 Väst
- TV4 Göteborg
- TV4 Halland
- TV4 Öresund
- TV4 Sydost
- TV4 Jönköping
- TV4 Skaraborg
- TV4 Öst
- TV4 Stockholm
- TV4 Mälardalen
- TV4 Uppland
- TV4 Gävle Dalarna
- TV4 Mitt
- TV4 Västerbotten
- TV4 Norrbotten
After the closedown of the analogue transmitters and the termination of TV4's public service obligations, the pattern of the local stations is due to a major overhaul which will see the number of local stations increase.
[
Jurisdiction
As TV4 was broadcast from Sweden, it has to follow much tighter advertising rules than its main competitors, TV3 and Kanal 5. Initially this mean't that TV4 wasn't allowed to include advertising breaks, meaning that the advertising had to be put in between the programmes.
Nonetheless, TV4 felt the urge to include advertising breaks. Therefore, it made several Inför programmes. The Inför programmes were short versions of TV4 programmes that were scheduled in the middle of programmes. For example, Fångarna på fortet would be divided into two parts and in between these, Inför Bingolotto would be shown. This allowed TV4 to broadcast advertising in the gaps between Inför Bingolotto and the two halves of Fångarna på fortet.
The Broadcasting Commission repeatedly ruled that the Inför programmes couldn't be considered as real programmes. In 2000 they were replaced by a programme called Dagens namn, in which the current namesday was mentioned. This was later on replaced by Om en bok in which famous people presented a book they enjoyed.
This ended in April 2002 when a new Radio and TV Law came into force, allowing TV4 to interrupt its programmes for advertising, but not to the same extent as TV3 and Kanal 5.
The Radio and TV Law also restricted the amount of advertising that can be shown to ten percent of the programming.
Since TV4 was the only commercial channel allowed to broadcast terrestrially, it had to pay a special fee to the government, consisting of a fixed fee and a variable element based on the amount of advertising that TV4 sells. TV4 worked to have this fee removed, especially with the launch of digital terrestrial television.
The new centre-right government intends to relax the advertising rules. TV4 would then broadcast up to twelve minutes of advertising (as opposed to the previous ten minutes in prime time and eight minutes during other time). The amount of advertising overall would also raise from ten percent to fifteen percent, giving TV4 the same rules as the UK-based broadcasters.[2]
[
Controversy
While showing the Nicholas Cage movie The Family Man on 24 November 2007, TV4 cut the movie prematurely for a commercial break only seconds from the climax of the movie. After the commercial break, the channel went on to show the next scheduled movie, Turn It Up, instead of the final part of The Family Man.[3]
In 2007, their edition of the Idol series was won by Marie Picasso, who was employed at the channel for several call-in game-shows at the time of her appearance.
[
References
- ^ TV4 har avvecklat den analoga satelliten
- ^ Annonstid i radio och TV, Swedish Ministry of Culture
- ^ Tittarstorm - TV4:s lördagsfilm bröts just före slutet
[
External links
- Official site (Swedish)
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|||||
For more information review our copyright contact and privacy policy.