Mad Men Media launches Pop FM in Finland

Pictured from left to right are Essi Unkuri, Cia Heritty, Lassi Hurskainen and Matti Roth

MALMÖ, Sweden — Mad Men Media has launched Pop FM in Finland, with the slogan “Feel good music” and a hot AC format. The station can reach 98.7% of the population via the FM network previously used by the Finnish public service broadcaster’s talk station Yle Puhe, which closed in January 2024.

Instead of recruiting talent from competitors, Pop FM has opted to find presenters without any radio experience but with a strong social media presence. The weekday schedule consists of comedian Matti Roth, Lassi Hurskinen, who has a background in sports and production, and Essi Unkuri, a bilingual content producer and former Miss Finland.

“We don’t think that the radio of the future will be the same as what has been before. We looked for personalities, not voices schooled in radio. The result is a presenter team with their own ways of expressing themselves and with a strong presence in the social media that our audience uses,” says Mad Men Media’s CEO and co-founder, Robert Persson. The company says it wants to compete with the two major commercial players — Bauer Media and Sanoma — by using “innovation, technical brilliance and courage.”

Security and sales

Ahead of the launch, Mad Men Media carried out what they describe as the country’s biggest-ever radio market research project with radio consultant Niklas Nordén, who has also worked with Mad Men Media’s Swedish radio station Retro FM.

“We found a gap in the market: listeners who aren’t satisfied with the current stations. Adding the excellent distribution via Yle Puhe’s old FM network, we look forward to becoming one of the leading actors on the market,” says Persson.

Mattias Gustavsson, another co-founder of Mad Men Media, is the CEO of the Finnish operation, while Persson is chairman. Cia Heritty, former customer care director at Bauer Media Finland, has been named COO.

Gustavsson has extensive experience developing FM networks. After Mad Men Media won the national license last year, he worked with transmission company Digita to expand and optimize Pop FM’s network and find new solutions to secure broadcasting in the event of crisis or war.

“We have added five new transmitters to get almost full coverage of Finland,” Gustavsson says. “As for security, we have developed a near 100% digital solution — from the microphone in the studio to the FM translator. We have multiple ways to distribute the signal to the transmitter, and we have also become the first station in Finland to introduce Digita’s new warning system.”

A sales agreement has been reached with Mediabooking, run by Bauer Media Finland’s former commercial director, Erkka Jaakola, and Kasper Kahila, previously sales director of Sanoma’s radio operations. B2B radio marketing specialist Veera Kyrö, recruited from Sanoma, will support them.

The author has covered Swedish radio since 1991, runs Radionytt.se and is active in Radioakademin.