We have compiled the most interesting and significant figures and events from Yle's year 2025.
Yle's year 2025 was about shared moments and great emotions. Yle produced a diverse range of content for Finns, such as news, current affairs programs, sports, culture, entertainment, drama, factual and devotional programs, educational content, programs for minority and special groups, as well as children's and youth programs, on radio, television, and online.
16 Golden Venla Awards and Other Prizes for Yle's Favorite Content
The popular Viki & Köpi Show was awarded Program of the Year 2025 and also received the Golden Venla for Best Talk Show. Other awarded Yle programs included Queen of Fucking Everything, PMMP keikalla: Ei enää ikinä documentary, and Kovan viikon ilta, which collected several awards.
Iida Tikka, who worked as Yle's US correspondent during 2020-2024, was selected as Journalist of the Year at the Great Journalist Award gala. Listen to the second season of the Iida Tikka & Mureneva maa podcast here.
The State Award for Public Information was given to Yle journalist Mikko "Peltsi" Peltola, adventurer Osmo Peltola, and director/cinematographer Juha Korhonen for their series Peltsi ja Osmo about the richness of humanity and nature, as well as to Yle journalist Jaakko Keso for his boundary-breaking journalism.
Yle Brought Finns Together for Shared Moments
The most watched program on television during the year was the Independence Day Presidential Reception, which reached 3.1 million Finns together with the Independence Day Service and the After Party. The domestically successful series Queen of Fucking Everything also entered international distribution in the Nordic countries as well as in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. Episodes of the series were started in Yle Areena during January 2025 a record-breaking nearly 8.3 million times.
The emotionally charged Contest for New Music (UMK) reached 2.3 million Finns in 2025, and during the evening nearly 350,000 votes were cast via the Yle app, phone calls, and text messages. Finns and the international jury selected Erika Vikman as the winner with the song "Ich komme," which placed 11th in the Eurovision Song Contest. We provided live commentary for the UMK final in numerous languages, including English, Ukrainian, Northern and Inari Sami, as well as in Finnish and Finland-Swedish sign language.
The year's biggest sporting moments were the World Ski Championships, the Women's European Football Championship, and the World Athletics Championships.
Interaction with Finns is at the core of Yle's public service
Active interaction with customers and audience is an essential part of Yle's operations and it plays an important role in developing Yle's content and services. In 2025, Yle's customer service received over 182,000 contacts. Discussion and feedback were received especially about Yle's news content, sports broadcasts, and program requests.
When logged in with a Yle ID, the audience can participate in discussions on parts of the content on Yle.fi website, svenska.yle.fi website, the Yle app, and Yle Areena through comments and chat discussions. During the year, Yle's content received approximately 705,000 comments and over 377,000 messages in chat discussions.
On Yle's social media accounts, over 1.5 million audience messages and comments were processed during 2025, which is four percent more than in the previous year. A total of approximately 60,000 responses were sent to these messages and comments.
Yle is Finland's Most Trusted News Media
Trust in Yle's news remained high as in previous years, and Finns consider Yle to be Finland's most reliable news media. According to the Reuters Institute, 83 percent of Finns find Yle's news reliable and 11 percent unreliable (Digital News Report 2025). According to Yle's own research, the corresponding figures are 81 percent and 7 percent (News Value Survey 2025, Norstat).
Yle's 31 news offices around Finland and correspondents around the world bring Finns information and perspectives on current events. In its journalism, Yle follows its own ethical guidelines as well as the Guidelines for Journalists.
The importance of reliable information has become even more emphasized. In 2025, Yle's verification team, established to verify information, began its operations. The verification team's task is to combat disinformation and deepfakes, as well as to ensure the authenticity of images and videos shared on social media, for example.
Yle Reaches 91 Percent of Finns Weekly
Yle and Yle Areena are the most valued media brands in Finland. In 2025, 91 percent of Finns aged 15 and over used Yle's content and services weekly.
Finns already have 3.3 million Yle IDs, and our digital services have about 1.3 million active logged-in users per week. The number of active customers using Yle's digital services while logged in grew by about 20 percent in 2025.
Active customers are defined as those logged-in users of Yle's services who, during a week, have either used Yle's digital services for more than 30 minutes, visited Yle's digital services on at least three days, or used both Yle Areena and the Yle.fi website or the Yle app.
Yle Ensures Reliable Information Dissemination Also in Emergency Conditions
In 2025, Yle's security of supply task was updated in the Yle Act to correspond to the current situation, where Yle prepares to handle information dissemination in emergency conditions in addition to television and radio operations.
The importance of Yle's statutory security of supply task has become an even more important part of Yle's operations due to Finland's operating environment and the world's geopolitical situation. Yle's public service has a central societal role also as disinformation and fake news increase.
Yle maintains its readiness to operate in crises and other exceptional situations through regular exercises. Operational capability in emergency conditions has been strengthened by increasing cooperation with security authorities.
Yle Employs a Passionate and Finland's Largest Creative Industry Workforce
Yle got a new CEO when Marit af Björkesten started in her position in October 2025. Marit is a long-time Yle employee with extensive experience in leadership positions in media and journalism.
Yle employs a group of professionals from journalists to coders and from producers to engineers. At the end of 2025, Yle employed 2,702 permanent monthly-salaried employees, of whom 86 percent worked directly in content creation-related tasks.
Of the permanent Yle employees, 51 percent are women; 57 percent of journalists were women and 58 percent of producers. Women's average salary was 97 percent of men's average salary in 2025. For employees in the program workers' collective agreement area, classified into requirement groups, which is about 73 percent of the staff, the corresponding figure was 99 percent. Read more about Yle's personnel.
Of Yle's 2025 Expenses, 98.7 Million Euros Was Directed to the Domestic Creative Sector
Yle serves as a significant funder of the domestic cultural sector. In 2025, Yle purchased domestic content and program operation services for a total of 98.7 million euros. This sum includes domestic presentation rights for 42.0 million euros, including Finnish drama, documentaries, and factual content, copyright compensation of 11.7 million euros, and music performance fees to Teosto and Gramex of 25.1 million euros. Yle is Finland's largest single payer of Teosto compensations.
Over half of all domestic feature films are completed with Yle's funding. In 2025, we funded 7 domestic feature fiction films, 12 domestic feature documentaries, and 14 domestic short films.
Yle's operations are funded by an appropriation paid from the proceeds of the public broadcasting tax. The Yle tax is paid by individuals aged 18 and over, as well as entities conducting business or professional activities or agriculture in Finland. Those earning less than 15,150 euros per year are exempt from the fee. In 2025, Yle's total revenue was 548.2 million euros, of which the share of the Yle tax-based appropriation was 98.4 percent. Read more about Yle's finances and the Yle tax.
About 1.8 Million Euros Collected in Charity Campaigns
Yle supports aid organizations' fundraising through its own program operations or acts as a cooperation partner, for example, in campaigns collecting emergency aid.
In 2025, events included the "Help for Children of War" support concert, which raised over 1,109,000 euros to help children and young people affected by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as the Viki and Köpi Show's "Laughter Marathon 42 km," which raised over 325,000 euros for the A-Clinic Foundation and the Federation of Mother and Child Homes and Shelters.
In total, Yle collected about 1.8 million euros in 2025 through charity campaigns for charity organizations such as the A-Clinic Foundation, the Federation of Mother and Child Homes and Shelters, UNICEF, Save the Children, and the Finn Church Aid.
Yle Expanded Cooperation with Commercial Media Companies
Yle creates significant value for individuals, society, and the industry. We engage in diverse cooperation with educational institutions, universities, cities and municipalities, organizations, cultural and technology actors, production companies, and other domestic media.
Yle continued its election-related cooperation, and in the 2025 regional and municipal elections, Yle's election compass was used by six media partners and Yle's election results service by nine partners. Yle shares valuable sports broadcasting rights with commercial media.
Yle offers public and non-profit organizations the opportunity to publish their own content free of charge in the Open Arena. Some of Yle Academy's training courses are available to representatives of commercial media. In 2025, Yle published operational environment analyses and research data for use by commercial news media. Read more about Yle's cooperation.
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