Nepal Television - Station Ident (01.31.2019)
Copyright (c) 2019 Nepal Television
Nepal Television, or NTV, is a state-owned broadcaster in Nepal, and it is run by the country's Ministry of Communication and Information Technology. The network had a monopoly on Nepalese TV until 2003, when private television channels were allowed to operate in the mountainous South Asian country.
The Nepalese government signed an agreement with French state-owned company Sofratev on 14 February 1982 to conduct a preliminary study of the feasibility of a TV network in Nepal for 30 days. Before its creation, the country was already receiving spillover signals from India. NTV started its broadcast operations in January 1985 with few hours of transmission, and today, the network serves over 72% of the Nepalese population with terrestrial reach over 50% of the nation's landmass.
There were several attempts being made by media stakeholders to turn NTV into a Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) entity, but despite this, it is still editorially controlled by the government and is perceived as a state mouthpiece.
In May 2023, the Nepalese government had plans to integrate both NTV and Radio Nepal into a single public broadcaster within the next two fiscal years. The proposal, through the Public Service Broadcasting Bill, was passed by both houses of parliament in September 2024; that bill was anticipated to facilitate enhanced editorial autonomy for the two entities, but it didn't ultimately include the provisions recommended by experts with the objective of guaranteeing the broadcaster’s editorial autonomy.