Watching TV

There's surprisingly much TV available - the TV listings site I use has 98 channels.
5 of them are Finnish analog channels (until August 2007, when all Finland goes digi).
Of course, most of them are subscribe-channels, like Canal+, BBC Food or Animal planet.
But I think the stuff available on the 5 basic channels is surprisingly good, if you think it's all prepared for only 5 million potential viewers.

A lot of soaps and films are imported, with subtitles. House and Lost come on Thursdays. We have Emmerdale, Dr.Phil, Conan O'Brian, O.C and CSI . Prison Break (Pako) and 24 (24) are the addictive stuff just now. Here's a list of films on channels 1-4 this week, with links to IMDb.
Reality TV formats are here, Idols just started and Big Brother finished.

There are program slots which have been reserved "forever" (=ever since I was allowed to watch). German "krimi" on channel 2 on Thursdays (Der Alte, Ein Fall fur Zwei, ...) . Nature and science on Channel 1 Saturdays 18:45 (nowadays BBC's Planet Earth). After that non-violent detective series (now Monk). Hospital drama 21:00 Thursday channel 3 (Now House, ).

I think the concept of subtitles (instead of voiceover) is great for Finnish education level. Only shows for pre-school kids come with voiceover. (And nature documents with stunning images, but on Digi you can usually choose between original Attenborough with subtitles, or Finnish voiceover with full pictures). It's a challenge for anyone on first grade to learn to read fast enough to follow the subtitles. And, basically everyone has heard people speaking English, Italian, French and Russian. (This was very annoying with BBC news: they speak over any foreign politicians).

Finland, the country of educated coach potatoes...