Norges Televisjon

Norges Televisjon AS

Type	Joint venture
Industry	Broadcasting
Founded	15 February 2002
Headquarters	Lysaker, Norway
Area served	Norway
Key people	Svein R. Aarvik (CEO)
Owner(s)	Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation TV 2 Telenor
Website	www.ntv.no

Norges Televisjon AS, or NTV, is the company that holds the concession to operate the digital terrestrial television (DTT) network in Norway. The infrastructure is owned by the Telenor-subsidiary Norkring, while the content is provided by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) and RiksTV. The company is owned in equal shares by NRK, TV 2 and Telenor. The same companies also own RiksTV, that offers a range of pay television channels.

NTV was established in 2002, and received a 15-year concession in 2006. DTT was introduced gradually starting in 2007, and by the end of 2008, full coverage had been reached. In 2008, the analog shutdown started, which will be completed by the end of 2009. The main network will provide digital TV-signals to 95 percent of the Norwegian population, including any areas in a satellite television shadow.

History

Norkring, a Telenor subsidiary that also owns the analog television network, started trial sending of DTT in 1999, based on DVB-T and MPEG-2 technology.^[1] Norsk Televisjon was founded by NRK and TV 2 on 15 February 2002. Telenor became a partner on 16 September 2005. The concession was awarded by the Norwegian Ministry of Culture on 2 July 2006, with a duration of 15 years.^[2]

The company was established to finance the DTT network in Norway. With a needed investment of NOK 1.5 billion, it was planned that this could be financed by private investors by allowing them to use most of the capacity to distribute pay TV, through the company RiksTV. The physical installations are owned by Norkring, and broadcasting is done with DVB-T standard using MPEG-4 encoding.^{[citation needed]}

DTT was introduced gradually starting in 2007, and by the end of 2008, full coverage had been reached. In 2008, the analog shutdown started, after a 6–12 months period of parallel operation in each region, which will be completed by the end of 2009. From the beginning, all channels available in the analog network are also available unencrypted in the digital network, including the NRK channels, TV 2 and local television. From 2010, TV 2 will become a pay channel, and all non-NRK channels will only be available via a subscription from RiksTV.^[3]

Content

Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation

Main article: Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation

Three television channels and thirteen radio channels are available unencrypted. These are financed through television licence. The television channels are NRK1, NRK2 and NRK3/NRK Super (these send on the same channel at different times).^[3] The radio channels are NRK P1, NRK P2, NRK P3, NRK mP3, NRK Super, NRK Sport, NRK Alltid Nyheter, NRK Sámi Radio, NRK Gull, NRK Jazz, NRK Folkemusikk, NRK Klassisk and NRK Stortinget.^{[citation needed]}

RiksTV

Main article: RiksTV

The first channels were announced on 12 June 2007 were: TV 2, TVNorge, TV 3, TV 2 Zebra, Discovery Channel, Disney Channel, The Voice TV, SportN, TV 2 Filmkanalen, TV 2 Nyhetskanalen, Viasat 4, TVNorge2 (was named FEM the next day), Canal+ Sport 1 and Canal+ Film 1.^[4] The radio channels P4, Kanal 24 and Radio 1 were also included.

On 4 July, it was announced that Animal Planet, Canal+ Film 2, the National Geographic Channel, TV 2 Sport and local television would launch later on. It was however announced in July that BBC World would become a part of the RiksTV package and that Animal Planet, Canal+ Film 2 and National Geographic would be a part of the package from the start, thanks to new compression technology.^[5]

Coverage

Government regulations states that the first multiplex must cover at least 95% of the population. Coverage is defined as sufficient field strength at a permanent residence with a directional outdoor antenna placed up to 10 meters above the ground. Persons permanently living in residential areas located in defined satellite shadow shall also have access to the programs in this multiplex. The second multiplex must be rolled-out in parallel with the first multiplex and also offer 95% population coverage. However, it does not need to cover the satellite shadow areas.

A supplementary network consisting of 400–800 antennas will be established to cover about 12,000 households, that are unable to receive TV-signals either from satellite, cable or broadband distributions.

A satellite shadow area has been mainly defined as following:

• No access to cable network or other technologies such as broadband.
• Cannot receive signals from a satellite where NRK1, NRK2 and TV2 are available because: 1) no clear line of sight from the parabolic antenna to the satellite, even when the antenna is placed in an in the invitation in detail defined optimum location. 2) the line of sight and reception is obstructed by mountains or other topographic conditions.

Milestones of Norwegian Digital Television

Main article: digital television in Norway

• 1960 Launch of formal television transmissions by the public broadcaster NRK
• 1992 Launch of commercial television broadcaster TV2
• 1997 Launch of digital satellite television
• 1998 DTT testing begins in Oslo
• 1999 2 December. DTT legal framework established
• 2000 June. Pilot trials cover 25% of population
• 2002 18 April. Government approves DTT licence procedure
• 2002 28 June. Invitation to tender for the DTT frequency license and the broadcasting facility license
• 2004 19 February. The Norwegian Parliament (Stortinget) increases the requirements for DTT population coverage
• 2005 10 February. Request by the only applicant for the DTT licenses, Norges Televisjon AS (NTV), to extend the length of the license from 12 to 15 years
• 2005 30 June. Government re-opens invitation to tender for the DTT licenses
• 2005 30 September. Deadline for submitting the DTT licenses application
• 2006 2 June. Government issues the licence to build and maintain the DTT operation to Norges televisjon.

References

1. ^ Norwegian Ministry of Culture (18 July 1999). "St.meld. nr. 46 (1998-99) Digitalt fjernsyn" (in Norwegian). http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/kkd/Documents/regpubl/stmeld/19981999/Stmeld-nr-46-1998-99-.html?id=192479. Retrieved 12 March 2009. 
2. ^ Norges Televisjon. "Om Norges Televisjon" (in Norwegian). http://www.ntv.no/om-norges-televisjon. Retrieved 12 March 2009. 
3. ^ ^{a b} Norwegian Media Registry. "Aerial TV" (in Norwegian). http://www.digitaltvinorge.no/en-gb/Venstremeny/Aerial-TV-/. Retrieved 12 March 2009. ^{[dead link]}
4. ^ Hans Hjellemo. "Her er digital-tv-kanalene". Kampanje. Archived from the original on 2007-06-14. http://web.archive.org/web/20070614172850/http://www.kampanje.com/medier/article55775.ece. Retrieved 2007-06-13. 
5. ^ Hans Hjellemo (July 4, 2007). "RiksTV avviser kanal-press". Kampanje. http://www.kampanje.com/medier/article56118.ece. Retrieved 2007-07-04. ^{[dead link]}