MTV3 (, ) is a Finnish commercial television channel owned and operated by the media company MTV Oy, originally launched in 13 August 1957 as a programming block and it came to be launched on 1 January 1993 as its own channel. It had the biggest audience share of all Finnish TV channels until Yle TV1 (from Yle) took the lead. MTV is actually stand for Mainos-TV (literally "Advertisement-TV", i.e. "Commercial TV), due to the channel carrying advertising for revenue. Number 3 was added later, when the channel was allocated the third nationwide television channel and it generally became known as "Channel Three"—Finnish Broadcasting Company's Yle TV1 and Yle TV2 being the first two—and also to distinguish it from the later MTV Finland, which is a Finnish version of Paramount's MTV channel. From 1957 until 2001, the channel's logo was a stylised owl, changed to an owl's eye after an image renewal in 2001, which was then used until 2013. MTV3 has about 500 employees. It is also known as Maikkari (a slang of word "Mainos-TV").
History
Early years
Oy Mainos-TV-Reklam Ab, or MTV for short, was founded on 29 April 1957 with the idea of establishing a commercial television channel that would show advertisements between programmes. MTV was one of the earliest nationwide private television networks in Europe, preceded only by the ITV network in the United Kingdom and RTL in Luxembourg.
The project set out to lease programming blocks from Yleisradio (YLE), the public broadcaster, whose television project Suomen Televisio had already begun test broadcasts. Yleisradio was initially reluctant but eventually agreed in order to get additional revenue, which was required to produce programmes in order to compete with TES-TV. According to the initial agreement, MTV only got around ten hours a week of airtime, all outside the prime time and was not allowed to produce its own newscasts nor air party political broadcasts. MTV's first broadcast was on 13 August 1957.
During the early years, MTV was on shaky financial and political grounds. The company survived the troubles and by the early 1960s had begun to establish its position. As Yleisradio expanded the range of television broadcasts, MTV's coverage increased as well. This gave them a significant competitive edge over TES-TV, since renamed to Tesvisio, whose broadcasts could only be watched in some of the larger cities. In 1964, Yleisradio announced that they had purchased Tesvisio (who were nearing bankruptcy) outright and that they would launch a second channel reorganized from Tesvisio's assets. MTV expressed demands that the second channel be given to them, but Yleisradio refused any such attempts, agreeing however to give MTV more air time, even some prime time, on the second channel. TV-ohjelma 2 ("TV programme 2") launched on 7 March 1965, with Suomen Televisio renamed to TV-ohjelma 1 ("TV programme 1").
Even though YLE and MTV broadcast on the same two channels, they were effectively considered separate networks and organised daily handovers, including airing idents, to the other network whenever MTV's programming blocks began or ended. This could happen independently for either of the two channels, since they had independent schedules. As time went on, a distinction in terms of programming between the two broadcasters developed, with MTV focusing on lighter entertainment and YLE on informative programmes. MTV moved their headquarters to a new building, Pöllölaakso (fi:Pöllölaakso (1967–2023)), in Ilmala in 1967. The first colour broadcast on MTV was aired in 1970. Like with Yleisradio, colour programming increased gradually and by the end of the 1970s, most programmes were in colour. To commemorate the colour transition, MTV introduced a new, simplified owl logo in 1975 which would remain in use until 1993.
MTV becomes MTV3
After much political wrangling and prolonged discussions with Yleisradio, in 1981, MTV managed to introduce their own news programme, Kymmenen uutiset ("the ten o'clock news"). The company was renamed to MTV Oy in 1982.
In the mid-1980s, Yleisradio, MTV and Nokia began a joint venture to establish a pay television channel. This project culminated in 1986 in the launch of a third nationwide channel, Kolmoskanava, which was however free-to-air. The channel mostly broadcast foreign imports but some original shows were broadcast as well (albeit not produced by the channel). MTV also began broadcasting their programmes on the channel and started to increase their share in the project. By 1990, MTV had a majority share in the channel.