Latvijas Televīzija
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This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. (March 2013) |
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| Type | Broadcaster (Television, Radio & Online) |
|---|---|
| Country | Latvia |
| Availability | Latvia |
| Key people | none |
| Launch date | 1954 |
| Official website | ltv.tv |
Latvijas Televīzija (Latvian Television or LTV) is the state-owned public service broadcasting television company in Latvia.
The company is funded by grant-in-aid from the Latvian government (around 60%), and gaining the rest from showing television commercials [1]. Although moving LTV to licence fee funding has long been debated, this has been consistently opposed by the government. Many media analysts believe that the real reason for this is that the government is reluctant to lose the control of LTV that state-funding gives the government [2].
LTV operates two channels, LTV1 in Latvian and the youth-oriented LTV7 (previously called LTV2) in Latvian and Russian. LTV1 is the annual broadcaster of Eurovision in Latvia, and LTV7 also broadcasts many sport events like Olympics, different Latvian sport league and national team games, MHL, Euro and FIFA World Cup.
The company is the member of the European Broadcasting Union since 1 January 1993. LTV hosted the annual Eurovision Song Contest in 2003, as well as the IIHF Men's Ice Hockey Championships in 2006.
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History [edit]
LTV began broadcasting on 6 November 1954 in black-and-white then LTV2 launched in 1966 and converted to SÉCAM color in 1974. The color standard was changed to PAL in 1998.
In 2008, LTV started being broadcast in digital terrestrial TV standard in MPEG2 format, changing to MPEG4 format on 1 August 2009 as the telecommunications company Lattelecom has been chosen to be the official integrator of digital terrestrial TV in Latvia. Analogue distribution of LTV7 has been finished on 1 March 2010, LTV1 is currently not broadcasting in analogue in Riga region, and it's planned to completely finish broadcasting LTV1 in analogue format on 1 July 2010.
Both LTV channels are also available on the Sirius satellite's Nordic beam as part of Viasat package.
Broadcasting hours [edit]
LTV1 broadcasts for 21 hours from 4:00 to 1:00 (on weekdays) and 22 hours from 4:00 to 2:00 (on weekends) and LTV7 broadcasts for 16.5 hours from 7:30 to midnight, LTV2 previously reduced broadcasting hours from 18 to 16.5 on 1 May 2013. The test card of LTV is EBU color bars with text "LATVIJAS TV-1" or "LATVIJAS TV-7" with test tone.
The startup contains station ID and then Latvian national anthem and then start of programming. The closedown contains tomorrow's programs and then station ID and then anthem then testcard.
LTV1 changed broadcasting hours from previously 19 hours from 5:00 to midnight in 2005, has been added to 20 hours from 4:00 to midnight, and then to 21/22 hours in 2013.
Previously, LTV7 broadcasted from 6:00 to 22:00, and previously, before 2006, broadcasted from 7:00 to 22:00. LTV7 started broadcasting for 18 hours in January 2013 and reduced to 16.5 hours in May 2013.
In the 1990s LTV1 broadcasted for 16 hours from 6:00 to 22:00 and LTV7 from 7:00 to 22:00. In 2005 LTV1 broadcasted for 19 hours from 5:00 to midnight, and LTV7 broadcasted for 15 hours from 7:00 to 22:00.
The former test card of LTV until 2008 was Philips PM5544 test card with time and date, then in 2008-2013 was EBU colorbars with text "LATVIJAS TV". Until 2008 LTV played patriotic songs on test card, then in 2008-2013 used 400-600 Mz test tone, then finally uses the logo test card since 5 April 2013. Between 5 - 24 April 2013, the test card of LTV was logo with current time and instrumental version (-1) of vocal songs from the 60's and 70's such as All I Have to Do Is Dream, Yesterday Once More, Your Cheating Heart, Donna Donna, etc. LTV replaced old colorbars test card on 5 April 2013 with the logo test card. Starting night of 24 April 2013, LTV test card is 2008 version.
See also [edit]
References [edit]
Television across Europe. Bd. 2 Budapest : Open Society Institute, 2005; 5 September 06
External links [edit]
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