Television in Bulgaria


Television in Bulgaria[Nickelodeon (Bulgaria)|] was introduced in 1959. Although the Bulgarian media market is small, it is one of the most vibrant and highly competitive in Central and Eastern Europe. Global players such as News Corporation, Modern Times Group, Central European Media Enterprises HD Sofia TV and Fox Broadcasting Company and others operate the biggest and most popular media outlets in the country.

Terrestrial

In 1954, a team at the Machine and Electrotechnics Institute in Sofia started experimental television broadcasting with two antennas on the roof of a building near the Vasil Levski monument in the city, after having previously conducted successful cable test transmissions. These experimental broadcasts aroused the interest of the Ministry of Communications, which decided to build a broadcasting tower in Sofia, with a state-controlled channel to air from it. The new channel started with an unofficial broadcast on 1 November 1959, and made its first official broadcast several days later with the live coverage of the 7 November, commemorating the Russian Revolution of 1917. The experimental channel of the MEI did not air anything but a test chart on that day, although it did show a greeting to the new Sofia Television Station three times after 19:05. The MEI channel continued to operate until late 1960, when the team started working on the future introduction of color television.
The new channel, later referred to as "Bulgarian Television" used the OIRT standard of 625 lines and 25 frames per second. It also used the D/K audio system, which was generally done to prevent reception of Western European stations in Eastern Bloc countries. Public attention was quickly caught by the new medium, and the number of bought and registered television sets increased gradually. In 1960, a powerful 20 kilowatt transmitter was installed at Botev Peak, covering a large area of the country. Later, more transmitters and retranslators were placed in various cities, towns and villages around the country.
Programming was controlled and influenced by the Bulgarian Communist Party-run government in this time, as was usual in the Eastern Bloc. The first popular program were the news, which were titled "Around the World and at Home", a name which is used to this day. The news' trademark "spinning globe" opening, first animated in 1961, is also still used. Other popular shows started around this time were the children's block "Good Night, Children", television theatre programs, the various sport events which were broadcast live from around the world, and music programs like the regular New Year celebration shows. Foreign programming in the early years was limited to mostly Soviet Union productions, as well as some direct rebroadcasts of Soviet television programming.
In 1972, the first color broadcast was made, again of a manifestation. The SECAM color system was used, because PAL was used in most western countries. After several years, the entire programming was broadcast in color.
In 1974, the second channel of the Bulgarian Television was launched, with the original channel being called simply "first channel". Later, they were given on-screen logos and were named "BT1" and "BT2". In the late 1980s, some western programming was allowed, including Pink Panther cartoons and the television series La piovra and Escrava Isaura. Ivan Garelov's Panorama and Kevork Kevorkyan's Vsyaka nedelya talk shows/news magazines were among BT's most popular programs. With the fall of the communist rule in 1989, the two channels changed dramatically. They started airing a lot of US films and TV series, one of the first being The Flintstones. Their names were also changed, BT 1 became Kanal 1 and BT 2 became Efir 2. The television organisation's name was changed to Bulgarian National Television. In the 1990s, BNT changed the color television system to PAL, while keeping compatibility with older TV sets by using the DK audio standard. Efir 2's frequencies were sold in 2000 to News Corporation for the country's first over-the-air national channel: bTV. In 2008, Channel 1 was again renamed to BNT 1. The second programme started again in 2011 under the name BNT 2. It merged the regional BNT programmes.
Privately owned television channels started to appear immediately after the regime change. Most were associated with a cable television network run by the same parent company. Around 1994-1995 private over-the-air broadcasters also appeared, but they usually only operated within a single area. Nova Television and 7 Dni TV were two of the first such channels, available only in Sofia. After bTV took over Efir 2's frequencies, another competition selected Nova Television, already popular in cable networks around the country, as the second privately owned national channel in Bulgaria. The authorities currently refuse to license further analogue terrestrial channels, until DVB-T broadcasting is started.

Digital terrestrial television in Bulgaria

The Bulgarian Telecommunications Company provided one experimental DVB-T transponder in Sofia since 2004.
First regular digital broadcast started on 1 March 2013, with a plan to terminate analog broadcasting on 1 September 2013.
The Simulcast period allowed people time to buy new integrated Digital TVs or set-top boxes. Standards chosen are DVB-T and MPEG4 AVC/H.264 compression format, while DVB-T2 would not be used for now.
On 30 September 2013, the analog broadcasting was officially terminated, leaving the country with 96,2% of the population DVB-T broadcasting coverage.

Cable

Cable television in Bulgaria appeared in the early 1990s, with some of the earliest networks starting operation in 1991 and 1992. Satellite channels from other countries were one of the main features of cable television at the time and in the following years channels like Cartoon Network Europe, MTV European and Discovery Channel became very popular, as more people subscribed to the cable TV operators. Many cable companies created their own television channels, which were available only to their subscribers. Due to technical limitations, it was initially difficult for such channels to be distributed to other populated places in the country, but in the late 90s several channels started to appear in the entire country using Bulgarian Telecommunications Company cables as the distribution method. In 1998, M SAT became the first Bulgarian channel available via satellite. The local terrestrial channel Nova Television from Sofia became available all over the country in 1999 using cable transmission. Around 2000-2001, some foreign broadcasters such as Discovery Channel and the Hallmark Channel having a Bulgarian audio track.
Analogue broadcasting is still used by operators, and it was the only method used before 2004-2005. Since then, many of them started lowering the number of analogue channels in order to launch DVB-C transponders. However, because the monthly fee for the digital packages is higher, some subscribers choose to continue using the analogue service, although with less channels than before. Currently, the biggest cable operators provide DVB-C channels in the major cities and towns. As of 2009, analogue channels are usually the only service available in villages.

Satellite

Satellite channels from Bulgaria appeared prior to the existence of a DTH operator. The first channel to start broadcasting via satellite was MSAT in 1998, operating from Varna. Before this, the Mustang channel was distributed through cable lines, maintained by the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company. The following year, the Bulgarian National Television launched a special channel, TV Bulgaria, dedicated to Bulgarians living abroad. Several other channels followed, including the musical channel MM.
Then, in 2003, Bulsatcom became the first Bulgarian DTH operator, offering initially a limited amount of channels on Hellas Sat 2. The next year, ITV Partner was launched as a DTH service by Interactive Technologies PLC, broadcasting on Eutelsat W2. Both supply DVB-S satellite television in Bulgaria and most European countries, with some of the TV channels using the two DTH operators as their main distribution medium. The second half of 2010 saw the long anticipated launch of the third Bulgarian DTH provider, operated by Bulgaria's Vivacom. There is also a small package operated by Telenor on Thor 3, which has for a long time distributed certain Bulgarian TV and radio channels.
Generally, Bulgarian television companies do not require a high fee for their channels' availability to viewers, but because of licensing restrictions of foreign programming, most satellite channels are encrypted, so that distribution outside Bulgaria can be limited. Free-to-view channels carry less such programming, airing for example music or locally produced programs only. Currently, most channels that broadcast nationally are available via satellite.

List of television channels

TV channelLogoTypeLaunchedFormerly calledSister channelWebsiteOwned bySeatCountryPicture formatAudio lang.OnlineTerrestrialSatelliteCableIPTV
BNT 1poly26.12.1959BT
BT1
Kanal 1 		BNT 4
BNT 2
BNT 3		http://www.bnt.bg/Bulgarian National TelevisionSofia16:9 SD/HDBG http://tv.bnt.bg/bnt1 MUX3
MUX BUL12-1		Intelsat 12
Hellas Sat 2
Astra 3B
BNT 2poly01.01.1974
16.10.2011		BТ2
Efir 2
BNT Sever
BNT Pirin
BNT Plovdiv
BNT More
BNT Sofia		BNT 4
BNT 1
BNT 3		http://www.bnt.bg/bnt2Bulgarian National TelevisionSofia, Varna, Plovdiv, Rousse, Blagoevgrad16:9 SDBG http://tv.bnt.bg/bnt2 MUX3Intelsat 12
Hellas Sat 2
Astra 3B
BNT 4poly02.05.1999TV Bulgaria
BNT Sat
BNT World 		BNT 1
BNT 2
BNT 3		http://www.bnt.bg/bnt_worldBulgarian National TelevisionSofia16:9 SDBG
ЕN		 http://tv.bnt.bg/bntworld/Astra 3B
BNT 3poly06.02.2014BNT HD BNT 1
BNT 2
BNT 4		http://www.bnt.bg/bnt_hdBulgarian National TelevisionSofia16:9 HDBG
ЕN		 https://bnthd.bnt.bg/
bTVpoly01.06.2000/bTV Comedy
bTV Cinema
bTV Action
bTV Lady
RING		http://www.btv.bg/CME Sofia16:9 SD/HDBG http://live.btv.bg/ MUX2Intelsat 12
Hellas Sat 2
Astra 3B
bTV Actionpoly22.01.2011TOP TV
CTN
TV2
PRO.BG 		bTV
bTV Cinema
bTV Comedy
bTV Lady
RING		http://www.btv.bg/actionCME Sofia16:9 SD/HDBGIntelsat 12
Hellas Sat 2
Astra 3B
bTV Comedycomedy01.10.2009TV Triada
GTV 		bTV
bTV Cinema
bTV Action
bTV Lady
RING		http://www.btv.bg/comedyCME Sofia16:9 SDBGIntelsat 12
Hellas Sat 2
Astra 3B
bTV Cinemafilm07.12.2009/bTV
bTV Action
bTV Comedy
bTV Lady
RING		http://www.btv.bg/cinemaCME Sofia16:9 SDBGIntelsat 12
Hellas Sat 2
Astra 3B
bTV Ladypoly28.01.2012/bTV
bTV Action
bTV Comedy
bTV Cinema
RING		http://www.btv.bg/ladyCME Sofia16:9 SDBGIntelsat 12
Hellas Sat 2
Astra 3B
RINGsport1998RTV
Ring +
Ring TV
RING.BG		bTV
bTV Action
bTV Comedy
bTV Cinema
bTV Lady		http://www.ring.bg/CME Sofia16:9 SD/HDBGIntelsat 12
Hellas Sat 2
Astra 3B
Astra 1G
Nova televisionpoly16.07.1994/Diema
Kino Nova
Diema Family
Nova Sport
Diema Sport		http://www.novatv.bg/Modern Times GroupSofia16:9 SDBG http://live.novatv.bgMUX2Intelsat 12
Hellas Sat 2
Astra 3B
Diemapoly15.05.1999Diema+ Kino Nova
Diema Family
Nova Sport
Nova Television
Diema Sport		http://www.diema.bg/Modern Times GroupSofia16:9 SDBGIntelsat 12
Hellas Sat 2
Astra 3B
Diema Familypoly01.08.1999Alexandra TV Diema
Kino Nova
Nova Sport
Nova Television
Diema Sport		http://diemafamily.novatv.bg/Modern Times GroupSofia16:9 SDBGIntelsat 12
Hellas Sat 2
Astra 3B
Kino Novafilm11.08.2003Diema 2 Diema
Diema Family
Nova Sport
Nova Television
Diema Sport		http://www.kinonova.bg/Modern Times GroupSofia16:9 SDBGIntelsat 12
Hellas Sat 2
Astra 3B
Nova Sportsport30.04.2010ММ Diema
Kino Nova
Diema Family
Nova Television
Diema Sport		http://sport.novatv.bg/Modern Times GroupSofia16:9 SD/HDBGIntelsat 12
Hellas Sat 2
Astra 3B
Diema Sportsport21.02.2015Diema Extra Diema
Kino Nova
Diema Family
Nova Television
Nova Sport		http://www.diemasport.bg/Modern Times GroupSofia16:9 SD/HDBGIntelsat 12
Hellas Sat 2
Astra 3B

Terrestrial (free-to-air channels with national coverage)

Channels marked with an asterisk have a Bulgarian audio channel, all others have Bulgarian subtitles only
*
Nickelodeon*
*
Nicktoons*
*
Nick Jr.*