Vietnam Television


Vietnam Television, or VTV, is the national television broadcaster of Vietnam.

History

The first television broadcast in Vietnam was in 1966 when the United States set up 2-channels in Saigon for the Republic of Vietnam. Named Đài Truyền hình Việt Nam, the network operated until the fall of Saigon.
VTV was established with technical assistance and training from Cuba on 7 September 1970, in Hanoi, as a department of Voice of Vietnam. During the Vietnam War it broadcast intermittently from a mountainous region.
After reunification in 1975, the former US-run stations in the south became part of the national network, and broadcasting was extended to the entire country.
Color television was experimented in 1978 and adopted the French SECAM standard and fully implemented in 1986. Vietnam Television became an official name on 30 April 1987. And by 1990, VTV viewers had two national TV channels to choose from as VTV2 was launched and that year switched to PAL.
VTV's regional broadcasting centres are located in Ho Chi Minh City, Huế, Da Nang, Nha Trang, and Cần Thơ. Programming is relayed nationwide via a network of provincial and municipal television stations. There are transmitters in most outlying areas of the country. By 2003, more than 80% of all urban households owned a television set. The percentage was considerably less in rural areas, but even the most remote village cafe has a TV and video or DVD player.
In addition, each major city and most of the 51 provinces have their own television stations.
From 19 March 2020, as a safety precaution due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam, Vietnam Television temporarily suspended the overnight timeslot on most channels, with the exceptions of VTV1, VTV4 & VTV7, and limited the broadcast time to 19 hours per day. The overnight timeslot returned to these channels as of 12:00am, 1 May 2020.

Channels

VTV today has the following channels:
Since 2003, all the above channels are also available via satellite, digital terrestrial and digital cable networks across Vietnam. The VTV itself offers 15 pay TV channels through satellite television and digital cable which are called K+ and VTVCab, respectively, with channels such as Reuters, ESPN, Disney Channel, Discovery Channel, BBC, HBO plus about 40 original channels.
Changes to VTV regional channels were made on January 1, 2016. VTV Huế, VTV Đà Nẵng, and VTV Phú Yên ceased programming and became VTV8, a specific channel for Central and Highland Regions of Vietnam. Both the old VTV9 and VTV Cần Thơ 1 merged to form the new VTV9 for both southeast and southwest of Vietnam, while VTV Cần Thơ 2 was renamed VTV5 Tây Nam Bộ, a bilingual Khmer-Vietnamese channel and the first regional variation of VTV5. '
On October 17, 2016, VTV5 Tây Nguyên''', a channel for ethnic minorities in Central Highlands of Vietnam and another regional variation of VTV5, was also launched.

Future channels

EPG no.EPG nameChannel nameChannel typeAvailabilityNotes
1VTV1VTV1Free TVNews and current affairs channel.
2VTV2VTV2Free TVScience and education channel.
3VTV3VTV3Free TVEntertainment channel.
4VTV4VTV4Free TVInternational channel.
5VTV5VTV5Free TVEthnic language channel.
6VTV6VTV6Free TVYouth channel.
7VTV7VTV7FreeTVNational education television channel.
8VTV8VTV8FreeTVSpecialized channel for viewers in the Central and Central Highlands region of Vietnam.
9VTV9VTV9FreeTVSpecialized channel for viewers in the Southern region of Vietnam.

Programming

VTV has its own film production company, the Vietnam Television Film Centre, or VFC, which makes made-for-television movies and miniseries. However, only about 30% of the entertainment programming shown on VTV is made locally. The rest is imported and dubbed in Vietnamese. Shows include Korean and Chinese serial melodramas, which are the mainstay of nightly programming on VTV3.
Aside from news and current affairs programming, VTV1 devotes itself to orchestral concerts, ballets, traditional theatre, ethnic minority culture shows and films.
Also, on Vietnamese New Year's Eve, VTV broadcasts some programmes and comedy show like Year's Last Afternoon, News Special, Gặp nhau cuối năm, music concerts, and firework shows, until 2 or 1 am
Details :
:vi:Danh sách các chương trình phát sóng của Đài Truyền hình Việt Nam|List of television programmes broadcasts by Vietnam Television

VTV Worldwide Bureaux

As of 2020, VTV has 15 bureaux with stationed staff and correspondents at:

VTV4

VTV4 has been criticized by South Vietnamese refugees and Vietnamese emigrees who find the channel's one-sided support of the one-party Communist state distressing and offensive.

Copyright infringement

According to Thanh Niên News, on 28 February 2016, VTV admitted that they had used a copyrighted content without permission in some of its programs, confirming that the violation has caused VTV's YouTube channel to be terminated. On this day, VTV, was notified by YouTube that the video sharing website had received multiple third-party claims of copyright infringement regarding videos on its official YouTube channel. The channel was terminated the following morning. VTV then told local press that some of its editors used some footage they found online in their news and current affairs programs without asking permission of the copyright holders. The programs were then uploaded on the YouTube channel. The case was exposed after Bui Minh Tuan, 35, reported that VTV had repeatedly used his drone videos, posted on his YouTube channel named Yamaha Trung Ta, without seeking his permission. Tuan, who runs a motorcycle trading company in the central Quang Tri Province, told ICTNews that he had spent a lot of time and money to produce the aerial videos capturing beautiful scenes across the country. He claimed that over 2015-2016 he had sent many complaints to VTV, the Department of Copyright and the Vietnam Ministry of Information and Communications to report around 20 copyright infringements by VTV, but no response was received. Tuan decided to report the case to Google, the owner of YouTube. Since September he has reportedly filed three complaints. He told ICTNews he is not trying to seek damages and that he wants VTV to respect copyright laws. Tuan said VTV needs to make a public apology to him in a news program and hold a press conference on the matter.