Sámi Radio
The Sámi Radio Today
The Sámi Radio aims at providing a comprehensive program profile for our Sámi-speaking audience. Our news and programs on current affairs are the flagship of the channel.
We air regional newscasts six times and Nordic newscasts five times a day. Every day, you can hear Sámi music from traditional yoiks to Sámi heavy rock on the channel.
In addition to our features on current affairs, we provide diverse cultural programs and entertainment. Our children's program Binna bánna has become very popular among our youngest listeners. Twice a week, we air a radio show called Kákáos for the young. Our religious programs consist of reading the Bible but also of Sámi spiritual music.
We also broadcast special programs for the listeners who speak Inari and Skolt Sámi.
Radio
Radio is the most significant news media operating in Sami. Through Monday to Friday, the Sami Radio of the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE transmits 10 newscasts a day.
Daily programs on current affairs add to and offer background information on the news. They both deal with the Sami and their community but also with the most important news concerning the Nordic countries and the world. In addition to communication, the radio also fulfills a central cultural purpose. It enables the Sami to listen to their own music, narrative art and stories both on everyday life and on festivities and celebrations in their mother tongue. Programs for children and the young, and religious programs, as well as entertainment, are part of the channel's sphere.
The radio has, to great extent, modernized the Sami language. Through radio, numerous new words and expressions concerning modern society and life in it have become common. The Sami Radio has produced language courses for those studying Sami. The Sami language has had a stronger position in the Sami Radio than in the surrounding society.
The sense of unity among the Sami has been enforced by the co-operation between the Nordic radios. The Sami Radio has distributed news and information on affairs concerning the Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and Russian Sami for the whole population living in the Arctic area of the Nordic countries. The Nordic Sami Radios, especially the Finnish and Norwegian networks, exchange news and programs on a daily basis.
Television
The Norwegian Sámi Radio produces about twenty hours of TV programs every year for the Norwegian Radio NRK. These broadcasts mostly consist of programs for children and the young, of features on current affairs and of reportages.
The Swedish national television, too, has a Sámi editorial office; it is situated in Kiruna. It produces about ten hours of features on current affairs and children's programs for the TV channels of the Swedish television SVT.
The Finnish Broadcasting Company's YLE Sámi Radio is a co-producer of the Nordic Sámi TV News. In Finland, their broadcasting started at the beginning of 2002, when they had already been broadcast for half a year by the Norwegian NRK Sámi Radio and the Swedish SVT Sápmi.
The newscast lasts for fifteen minutes and can be seen in all of Sweden and Norway with Swedish/Norwegian subtitles. In Finland, the newscast can be seen on FST5 in Northern Lapland; throughout Finland, the news can be seen on the digital channel FST5 with Finnish and swedish subtitles. See the latest news here.