Episode 115 · 2022-01-02 · 23:29 · Original in Finnish
23 Minutes | Arto Koskelo | Negotiator 115
Originally published as “23 Minuuttia | Arto Koskelo | Neuvottelija 115”
Arto Koskelo spent ten years in the wine trade and became Iltalehti's wine writer; later he left radio and decided never to make media again — and once the pandemic began he founded the 23 Minuuttia channel with Jussi Heikelä in May 2020. By the time of recording it had passed twenty thousand subscribers. The episode takes the format's logic apart: five episodes a week is, in Koskelo's words, a drug dealer's tactic that makes the programme part of a listener's morning routine, with Patreon specials filling the empty Saturday, and the name is a deliberately annoying odd number that roughly matches a commute. The host calls their work clearing the Overton window and admits his own approach is more cautious — he does not say difficult things himself but asks them of his guests.
Core theses
- Five episodes a week is a distribution decision, not an editorial one: daily publication buys a slot in the listener's routine that weekly publication cannot.
- Twenty-three minutes was chosen as an annoying odd number that roughly fits a commute, which makes the runtime a product specification rather than an editorial judgement.
- The power to define is the real stake in labelling: Koskelo refuses to hand it to those who would brand everyone right of the Social Democrats, and invites critics to point to an actual episode instead.
- The host's contrast is the honest part of the episode: asking a guest the difficult question and saying it yourself carry different risks and produce different programmes.
Watch and listen
Key moments
- 00:00 — Guest Arto Koskelo and the 23-minute clock
- 01:33 — Channel growth curves and the Malinen effect
- 02:46 — Talking alone does not work, a two-person format does
- 04:46 — Where the weekly topics come from
- 06:40 — Concern about one-sidedness in the debate
- 08:06 — Watches: Jaeger-LeCoultre and the aesthetics of mechanics
- 10:28 — Rolex and Lange & Söhne
- 11:57 — Where the name 23 Minutes came from
- 13:43 — Who gets the power to define
- 14:59 — YouTube's algorithm and commenters with no history
- 16:29 — What happens to links in the comment field
- 17:47 — Commercialising the channel
- 19:00 — Long-running partnerships instead of individual posts
- 20:54 — Ten years in the wine trade, and leaving it
- 22:06 — Wine still privately, and a possible themed episode
- 23:06 — The hill of Hermitage and Jack Daniel's with coke
Summary
Arto Koskelo spent ten years in the wine trade and became Iltalehti’s wine writer; later he left radio and decided never to make media again — and once the pandemic began he founded the 23 Minuuttia channel with Jussi Heikelä in May 2020. By the time of recording it had passed twenty thousand subscribers. The episode takes the format’s logic apart: five episodes a week is, in Koskelo’s words, a drug dealer’s tactic that makes the programme part of a listener’s morning routine, with Patreon specials filling the empty Saturday, and the name is a deliberately annoying odd number that roughly matches a commute. The host calls their work clearing the Overton window and admits his own approach is more cautious — he does not say difficult things himself but asks them of his guests.
Daily is a distribution decision
Publishing five times a week is not about having more to say. It is about occupying a recurring slot in someone’s morning, which a weekly programme cannot do however good it is. Koskelo is candid that this creates a deliberate dependency, and that the Saturday gap is what the Patreon specials are for.
A runtime that fits a journey
Twenty-three minutes is odd enough to prompt the question of why, and long enough to fill a commute without starting to feel like effort. Setting the length from the listening situation rather than from the material is the sort of decision most programmes never make explicitly.
Two ways to ask the hard question
The most candid exchange is about method. Koskelo’s stated motive is liberal: to counter a debate he finds one-sided and to keep the power to define in his own hands. The host’s practice is to put the difficult question to a guest and let them answer it; he calls himself still a bit of a coward. Both are editorial positions and the episode does not pretend they are the same one.
Watch
The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: 23 Minuuttia | Arto Koskelo | Neuvottelija 115. A Finnish edition of this episode is published at www.neuvottelija.fi.
In depth
The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode: English · suomeksi.
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People and topics
Guests: Arto Koskelo