Television in Sweden

Television in Sweden was started in the 1950s. A second channel started in 1969. Commercial television arrived in the 1980s through cable television and in 1992, the first terrestrial commercial channel was launched.

History

Trial broadcasts for the first television in Sweden launched on October 29, 1954, from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Prior to this, some Swedes could watch television originating in other countries, notably Denmark which started its broadcasts in 1951.

The official launch of television in Sweden took place on September 4, 1956 when the Radiotjänst TV service launched on the high power Nacka transmitter. The service was free from advertising and funded by a license fee and was operated by Radiotjänst, which was also in charge of the nation's two radio networks. Daily broadcasts started in 1957 and Radiotjänst became known as Sveriges Radio.

A second channel was discussed throughout the 1960s. It was eventually decided that a second channel would launch and that it would have the same business model as the first channel. TV2, as the new channel was called, launch in December 1969, and the first channel subsequently became TV1. Both channels were operated by Sverige Radio and funded by licence fees.

Colour broadcasts had started in the 1960s, but launched officially in april 1970. Trials with regional television started in 1970 in Scania. The entire country was covered by regional news broadcasts in 1987 when the capital region got their news programme. Sveriges Radio was reorganised and split into several new companies in the late 1970s, one of which was Sveriges Television which was responsible for television broadcasts.

Cable television started becoming common in the 1980s. At this time, the cable companies also started relaying international satellite channels. The first Swedish language satellite channel was TV3 which started in December 1987. Two other early satellite channels were Nordic Channel (later known as Kanal 5) which started in 1989 and TV4 which started in 1990.

The arrival of commercial satellite channels fueled a debate on allowing advertising in the terrestrial network. It was decided that a commercial channel would be allowed to broadcast terrestrially. In the autumn of 1991, it was decided that the owners of TV4 would get access to the new network. TV4 officially launched terrestrially in March 1992.

Some other channels that arrived in the '80s and '90s where FilmNet (1985), TV1000 (1989), ZTV (1991), TV21 (1993), TV6 (1994), TV8 (1997) and Viasat Sport (1999).

Sweden was one of the first countries in the world to launch digital terrestrial television. This happened in April 1999.

The arrival of digital television has caused the number of television channels to multiply.

The first high-definition television channel targeting the Nordic countries was C More HD which launched in 2005. SVT and TV4 made their first high-definition broadcasts in 2006.

Media companies

Four media companies dominate the Swedish television market:
*Sveriges Television which owns SVT1, SVT2, SVT24, Barnkanalen and Kunskapskanalen
*TV4 AB which owns TV4, TV4 Plus, TV400, TV4 Fakta, TV4 Film, TV4 Sport, TV4 Guld and TV4 Komedi.
*Modern Times Group which owns TV3, TV6, TV8, ZTV, the Viasat Sport package, the TV1000 package and some documentary channels.
*ProSiebenSat.1 Media which owns Kanal 5, Kanal 9, The Voice TV and the Canal+ package.

ee also

*List of television channels in Sweden