TV3 (''TV tre'') is a Swedish
pay television channel owned by
Viaplay Group. It was launched on 31 December 1987 by businessman
Jan Stenbeck
Jan Hugo Robert Arne Stenbeck (; 14 November 1942 – 19 August 2002) was a Swedish business leader, media pioneer, sailor and financier. He was head of Kinnevik Group from 1976 and founded among other things the companies Comviq, Invik & C ...
.
The channel was initially broadcast across all of Scandinavia. In 1990, separate
Danish
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...
and
Norwegian feeds were launched.
The channel's name refers to its launch at a time when television in Sweden was dominated by the two channels of
SVT.
History
TV3 was launched on December 31, 1987 and was the first commercial channel to broadcast in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The channel was transmitted from
London, in order to circumvent legislation that prohibited advertising being broadcast on Swedish television.
TV3 was one of the first channels to be broadcast on the
Astra 1A satellite when that launched in 1989; in addition, TV3 Sweden became available through cable television in many cities. In 1989, TV3 bought the rights to broadcast the
Ice Hockey World Championships and the
Wimbledon tennis championships
The Wimbledon Championships, commonly known simply as Wimbledon, is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and is widely regarded as the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, All England Club in ...
: their purchase of the former created major headlines in Swedish newspapers, as very few Swedes had access to TV3 at the time, whereas the interest in ice hockey in Sweden was high. As a result of this, TV3 made an agreement with
SVT to allow them to broadcast the ice hockey matches on a 15 minute delay, in exchange for SVT producing the broadcasts. In 1991, music channel
ZTV was launched as a program block on TV3. That same year, TV3 made a profit for the first time.
In mid-2006, TV3 began to broadcast six different regional versions, for advertising purposes; this made it possible to broadcast advertising directed to individual regions via the channel, an advertising form that
TV4 previously had a monopoly on. On satellite, all six versions are distributed. On other networks, Boxer and their respective cable operators transmit the regional version for the relevant area. Today, the channel is available via satellite (DVB-S/S2 through the owner MTG's Viasat and also at competing
Canal Digital, digital terrestrial and cable.
Programming
TV3 originally aired factual programs, news (originally for 20 minutes, later only for 3 minutes only), reality TV shows, game shows, children's programs and pure commercial programmes. In 2006, it became an entertainment channel, having dropped all daily news programmes. After the launch of digital terrestrial television, bringing with it increased competition, acquired films and TV programming have formed the backbone of the channel's output. Previous original programming included reality and game shows like ''
Expedition: Robinson'' (bought from SVT in 2004) as well as some factual programs.
Logos
File:TV3 Viasat.svg, TV3 logo used from 2002 until 2009
Image:TV3 Sweden 2009.svg, Current logo, used since 2009
References
External links
Official site
{{Swedish television channels
1987 establishments in Sweden
TV3 Sweden
TV3 (''TV tre'') is a Swedish pay television channel owned by Viaplay Group. It was launched on 31 December 1987 by businessman Jan Stenbeck.
The channel was initially broadcast across all of Scandinavia. In 1990, separate Danish and Norwegian f ...
Television channels in Sweden
Television channels and stations established in 1987