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A forgotten spirit of commercial television? Co-productions between Finnish commercial television company Mainos-TV and socialist televisionFinnish commercial television company Mainos-TV co-produced a string of documentary and entertainment programmes with television broadcasters in the USSR, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Hungary and Poland in the 1970s and 1980s. This article asks what motivated Mainos-TV, a commercial television broadcaster in a non-socialist country, to collaborate with socialist television? Based on an analysis of published and archival sources (e.g. industry documents, memoirs, television programmes and press coverage), the article argues that Mainos-TV engaged with socialist television to secure its position at a time when the operation of commercial television was still quite restricted. Finnish foreign policy placed great importance on maintaining good relations with the neighbouring USSR. In this context, the leadership of Mainos-TV viewed its collaboration with socialist broadcasters as a way to strengthen the company's position.International entertainment programmes and co-produced documentaries on social and cultural topics offered Mainos-TV 'quality' programming that differed from the stereotypical image of commercial television. Collaboration with Eastern European partners was not purely strategic, however, as it also brought influences from socialist television culture to Mainos-TV's offerings. Mainos-TV's co-productions with its socialist partners highlight the largely forgotten complexity of the history of European commercial television. In 1978, Finnish commercial television company Mainos-TV broadcast a programme called Neuvostoelokuvan kaksi tekijää [Two authors of Soviet cinema], introducing viewers to the careers of Andrei Tarkovsky and Vasily Shukshin. 1 A co-production between Mainos-TV and the Television and Radio Committee of the USSR, Two authors of Soviet cinema opens with views of people queuing outside a Moscow cinema. A Finnish voice-over sets the scene: 2 About 150 feature films in fifteen different languages are made in the Soviet Union eachyear. The production is financed by the state, which educates filmmakers for free and provides employment for all. […] In the Soviet Union, cinema is seen primarily as culture and art. Its value is not measured in viewing figures and box office receipts. The measure is humanity itself, how well a film is able to support spiritual development so that friendship would be friendship, love would be love, sincerity would be sincerity.Capacity for sacrifice, goodness and principledness are emphasized as human values.This naturally requires a society where a person's job and future are secure, where they feel like they do useful work to achieve common goals.

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