"Economic problems, notably low productivity and massive underemployment, meant that per capita GNP was very low compared to the West. Combined with the high rate of military expenditure, these economic problems limited the funds available for social investment and consumer spending. Unlike in the West, economic growth in the Soviet bloc did not lead to personal prosperity, and certainly not by the conspicuous standards of the West. This limitation increasingly compromised popular support for the system, especially because television made the public notably in East Germany, thanks to the heavy exposure to West German television, aware of better times elsewhere. Furthermore, viewers in northern Estonia could watch Finnish television. Television ‘soaps’, soap-operas of family life, proved particularly seductive as they apparently showed how families lived in the West. This awareness of a better life elsewhere encouraged the attempt in Eastern Europe not only to provide consumer goods but also to block Western television transmissions."