The sports screen is celebrating its 60th anniversary this week. Anssi Kukkonen, who created the program, tells what it was like to make Urheilurueut in its first years.
Sunday, August 18, 1963, it all began. Sports news got its own program in Finland when Sports Square was broadcast for the first time, Anssi Kukkonen at the instigation of.
– During my first years at Yleisradio, I traveled in Europe, and the Sportspegeln program was already running in Sweden. I talked to my superiors about whether it would be possible to set up a sports news broadcast on Finnish television as well. The reception was positive, Kukkonen recalls.
– Ralf Friberg, who, as I remember, was the boss of TV news, encouraged me a lot in this matter. It all started from there.
At first, the sports screen was only seen on Sunday evenings as a 15-minute broadcast. Later, the program was also broadcast on Thursdays and Saturdays. Urheiruruut changed to daily in 1993.
– Thursday was a tough sports day, when especially hockey championship matches were played that day, Kukkonen times.
The technical challenges were very different from today.
– It was quite limited. The programs were made on film, and the films were taken to the Kasarmikatu laboratory to be developed. The films then came from there to Pasila to be cut. It slowed things down, Kukkonen describes.
The Helsinki-centeredness is a source of anger from the viewers
The lack of link connections made it quite difficult to do.
– For understandable reasons, the sports screen was a program focused on Southern Finland and Helsinki. We had no chance to broadcast events from the northern side of the Tampere line, because the film had to be brought to Helsinki. After all, sports events are concentrated in the evenings.
There was also other feedback, especially from the trotting and car racing crowd.
– When the phone rang after the Sports Screen in the delivery room, the trotters said that “you always get auto racing, but never raves” and then the other way around. So there were two trade unions that were jealous of each other, Kukkonen remembers.
When the link connections improved later, there were still plenty of special situations.
– If something happened in Rome at 6 p.m., we got a glimpse of it on the Sports screen. But if something happened in Rovaniemi or Oulu at the same time, we had no chance to do anything, Kukkonen points out.
In ski competitions, the camera was taken to the forest
The breakthroughs of that time seem quite amusing today.
– Ski competitions used to show only departures and arrivals. But Urheilurutu’s cameras were at their best even in the forest. It was a radical change, as comical as it seems today, Kukkonen laughs.
Along with the rooster Seppo Kannas played a big role right away in the first broadcast in the history of Urheiluruutu.
– Seppo was strongly involved from the beginning and immediately hosted the first Sports Show. At the same time, I was reporting on the EC welding competitions. Seppo was established at in 1966, he was my recruit, Kukkonen recalls.
The sports screen is alive and well even now at the age of 60. Kukkonen is also one of the loyal viewers.
– There are few nights that I would not watch the Sports Screen, if only I was in my home country. And you can see it from Areena too, if it happens to be really tight. The sports screen has gained a solid foothold, the program is well delivered, Kukkonen sees.