Client profile
YLE is Finland's national public service broadcasting company. YLE operates five national television channels and thirteen radio channels and services complemented by 25 regional radio programmes.
In 2003 YLE's share of daily television viewing was 44% and YLE's share of daily radio listening was 51%. YLE's operations are financed mainly by television fee (EUR 186.60 per year), and programming carries no advertising. The company is 99.9% state-owned and supervised by an Administrative Council appointed by Parliament, and operates under the Act on Yleisradio Oy.
Project background
From the financial point of view the near-term objective of YLE is to turn the operating cash flow from negative to positive. However, in the process the main purpose of the company public remit-cannot be sacrificed.
The understanding of the situation as well as tools for managing the situation needed to be delivered to the senior and middle management at a rapid schedule. The task was particularly interesting because many of the key people have background on the creative side of the operations.
Cesim solution
Cesim designed and developed a public broadcasting services simulation to be first used as part of YLE’s strategic seminars for top and senior managers. Later the solution was also expanded to middle managers and producers.
A crucial factor in being able to deliver the results was that the people needed to understand the relationships between programming, production, purchases, and resource management. Only this would lead to more efficient coordination of functions and finally to best practices mode of operations.
In the simulation the main objectives are to obtain a large share of audience, high programme quality and audience satisfaction, and moreover to offer sufficient genre coverage for all the different audiences. Fulfilling the objectives under the financial limitations is challenging and requires profound thinking of the whole business process.
The Benefits
"During my career I have participated in different business simulations in Oxford, BBC, and other. The pinnacle of all has been Cesim’s tailor-made simulation for Yle. It is well-fitted to our current situation at Yle and it gives great opportunities to develop team-work.”
Juhani Wiio, Head of Corporate Development, YLE
Chairman of the Training Steering Committee
European Broadcasting Union
Participant’s comments
"Simulation gave me new angle for the television program planning from the financial point of view and it encouraged me to look deeper into financial decision making.”
"The game gave me practical examples how all different functions are connected to each other and how they reflect immediately to our company’s cost structure. "
"Simulation-training was fun and it clarified, quite deliberately, how economic factors influences everyday operations in the company.”
Written in co-operation with YLE
