Latvijas Televīzija

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 showing television commercials [http://www.soros.org/initiatives/media/articles_publications/publications/eurotv_20051011/voltwo_20051011.pdf] . 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 funding from government funds gives the government [http://www.soros.org/initiatives/media/articles_publications/publications/eurotv_20051011/voltwo_20051011.pdf] .

LTV began broadcasting on 6 November 1954 and converted to SÉCAM color in 1974. The color standard was changed to PAL in 1998. The company joined the European Broadcasting Union on 1 January, 1993. LTV hosted the annual Eurovision Song Contest in 2003.

LTV operates two channels, LTV1 in Latvian and the youth-orientated LTV7 (earlier called LTV2) in Latvian and Russian. Both channels are available on the Sirius satellite.

References

[http://www.soros.org/initiatives/media/articles_publications/publications/eurotv_20051011/voltwo_20051011.pdf Television across Europe. Bd. 2] Budapest : Open Society Institute, 2005; 5 September 06

ee also

* List of Latvian television channels

External links

* [http://www.ltv.lv/ Official Site]
* [http://www.eurovision.tv/english/history_2003_riga.htm Eurovision Song Contest 2003]
* [http://www.ebu.ch/members/members_active.php European Broadcasting Union]