Latvijas Televīzija (''Latvian Television'', LTV) is the state-owned
public service
A public service or service of general (economic) interest is any service intended to address the needs of aggregate members of a community, whether provided directly by a public sector agency, via public financing available to private busin ...
television
Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
broadcaster in
Latvia
Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...
. LTV operates two channels,
LTV1 in
Latvian and
LTV7 (previously called LTV2) in Latvian with selected programming in
Russian
Russian(s) may refer to:
*Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*A citizen of Russia
*Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages
*''The Russians'', a b ...
.
The broadcaster has been fully funded by the state budget since 1 January 2021, when, after years of debate, it and radio broadcaster
Latvijas Radio exited the
advertising
Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a Product (business), product or Service (economics), service. Advertising aims to present a product or service in terms of utility, advantages, and qualities of int ...
market.
LTV is a member of the
European Broadcasting Union
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; , UER) is an alliance of Public broadcasting, public service media organisations in countries within the European Broadcasting Area (EBA) or who are member states of the Council of Europe, members of the ...
, having joined on 1 January 1993. From the restoration of independence in 1991 to 31 December 1992, it was a member of the
International Radio and Television Organisation
The International Radio and Television Organisation (official name in French: Organisation Internationale de Radiodiffusion et de Télévision or OIRT (before 1960 International Broadcasting Organization (IBO), official name in French: ''Organ ...
(OIRT). LTV hosted the annual
Eurovision Song Contest
The Eurovision Song Contest (), often known simply as Eurovision, is an international Music competition, song competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) among its members since 1956. Each participating broadcaster ...
in 2003, as well as the
IIHF Men's Ice Hockey Championships in 2006 and 2021, and the inaugural
Eurovision Choir of the Year competition in
2017
2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly.
Events January
* January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...
.
LTV1 broadcasts the
Eurovision Song Contest
The Eurovision Song Contest (), often known simply as Eurovision, is an international Music competition, song competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) among its members since 1956. Each participating broadcaster ...
in Latvia each year, and LTV7 also broadcasts many
sport
Sport is a physical activity or game, often Competition, competitive and organization, organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The numbe ...
events such as the
Olympics
The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competit ...
, various Latvian league and national team games, the
Ice Hockey World Championships
The Ice Hockey World Championships are an annual international men's ice hockey tournament organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), first officially held at the 1920 Summer Olympics. The IIHF was created in 1908 while the I ...
(since 2018, extended 2028) and the
FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup, often called the World Cup, is an international association football competition among the senior List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams of the members of the FIFA, Fédération Internatio ...
.
History
Origins, 1954 to 1993
The first experimental broadcast of television in Latvia took place on 10 November 1937 at the Latvian Radio Society () during a public viewing in
Riga
Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...
, using an
oscilloscope
An oscilloscope (formerly known as an oscillograph, informally scope or O-scope) is a type of electronic test instrument that graphically displays varying voltages of one or more signals as a function of time. Their main purpose is capturing i ...
with the screen size of 45x50
cm. There were plans to launch regular broadcasts of "visual radio" by the
Latvian Radiophone in the early 1940s, but these were suspended by the
occupation of Latvia and
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
.
The first contemporary test broadcasts started on 6 November 1954 from a studio in
Soviet
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
Riga in
black-and-white
Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings.
Media
The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...
, which were seen by the 20 owners of personal television sets. It is the first and oldest national television station in the
Baltic countries
The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern co ...
. Regular broadcasting started on 20 November 1954. At the beginning, LTV did not have rights to create their own programming except live shows. In 1955, the Riga Television studio in Nometņu iela,
Āgenskalns was created to produce its own programming and the first TV tower in Latvia was built.

On 19 March 1958, the first evening news show went on the air - this is considered to be the founding date of the LTV News Service (. In 1963, it was renamed ''Panorāma'', as it is known to this day. A second TV channel was launched in 1961 and both channels converted to
SÉCAM color in 1974. In 1986, both the Riga TV Tower and the LTV television headquarters in
Zaķusala were officially completed.
During the
Third Latvian National Awakening, the broadcaster became more open to
Glasnost
''Glasnost'' ( ; , ) is a concept relating to openness and transparency. It has several general and specific meanings, including a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information and the inadmissi ...
-style freedom of expression and criticism of Soviet rule in Latvia, most notably in the form of the ''Labvakar'' political talk show (1988–1993). The buildings in Zaķusala were one of the locations defended during
The Barricades
The Barricades () were a series of confrontations between the Republic of Latvia and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in January 1991 which took place mainly in Riga. The events are named for the popular effort of building and protecting ...
. During the
1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt
The 1991 Soviet coup attempt, also known as the August Coup, was a failed attempt by hardliners of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) to Coup d'état, forcibly seize control of the country from Mikhail Gorbachev, who was President ...
troops of the
OMON
OMON is a system of military special police units within the Armed Forces of Russia. It previously operated within the structures of the Soviet and Russian Ministries of Internal Affairs (MVD). Originating as the special forces unit of the So ...
unit seized the LTV building on August 21, suspending broadcasts for two days.
1993–2013
On 1 January 1993, Latvian Television and
Radio Latvia became members of the
European Broadcasting Union
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; , UER) is an alliance of Public broadcasting, public service media organisations in countries within the European Broadcasting Area (EBA) or who are member states of the Council of Europe, members of the ...
(EBU). On 2 February 1998, LTV along with
LNT, Channel 31 (now
TV3) and
TV Riga (later
TV5) converted to
PAL
Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a color encoding system for analog television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...
color. In 2003, LTV2, the second channel, was rebranded as LTV7. The 7 was due to the initial slogan of the renamed service, "Because every day is like a holiday", which was coupled with its new programming concept, content and higher advertising rates.
In 2008, LTV started broadcasting in
digital terrestrial TV standard in
MPEG2
MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods ...
format, changing to
MPEG4 format on 1 August 2009 as the telecommunications company
Lattelecom has been chosen to be the official integrator of
digital terrestrial TV in Latvia.
Analogue distribution of LTV7 finished on 1 March 2010. LTV completely finished broadcasting LTV1 in analogue format on 1 July 2010. Both LTV channels are also available on the
Sirius satellite's Nordic beam as part of the
Viasat package.
Public Broadcasting of Latvia (since 2013)

Since 2013, LTV has come under the umbrella of
Public Broadcasting of Latvia
Public Service Media of Latvia ( – LSM) is a publicly funded radio and television organization operated by both of Latvia's public broadcasters – Latvijas Televīzija, Latvian Television and Latvijas Radio, Radio Latvia. LSM provides news, a ...
(, LSM) along with
Latvian Radio, as part of the unification process of both public broadcasters. LTV and Radio Latvia now share one news portal, ''LSM.lv'', and an online streaming service (''REplay.lv''), with content from both broadcasters. A third channel with
Eesti Televisio was planned, with programming in the Russian language, in 2015.
LTV changed its aspect ratio from
4:3 to
16:9 in 2013 (LTV7 did in 2012, doing
2012 Summer Olympics
The 2012 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012, were an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...
). Selected programming such as live broadcast of a staging of
The Nutcracker
''The Nutcracker'' (, ), Opus number, Op. 71, is an 1892 two-act classical ballet (conceived as a '; ) by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, set on Christmas Eve at the foot of a Christmas tree in a child's imagination featuring a Nutcracker doll. Th ...
by the
Latvian National Opera on LTV1 in 2012 and the matches of the
IIHF World Championships on LTV7 (2018–present), were shown in HD. In 2019 a full switch to
HDTV
High-definition television (HDTV) describes a television or video system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since at least 1933; in more recent times, it ref ...
broadcasts was announced for 2021 or 2022, although delayed in previous years due to financial constraints. After upgrading their broadcasting technology, both TV channels and content on the REplay.lv and LSM began a gradual switch to
Full HD (1080p) on 19 May 2021 for cable and online broadcasts (the switch for free terrestrial operators is scheduled for 2022). The LTV News Service programs (''Panorāma'' etc.) marked their switch to 1080p on August 30 by unveiling a new studio and visuals.

In 2016, LTV launched the online channel ''Visiem LTV'' ('LTV to all', also styled VISIEMLTV.LV) for foreign viewers, mostly targeted for the
Latvian diaspora. The programming is a mix of LTV1 and LTV7 broadcasts that are not restricted by copyright laws and are available globally.
Until 2021, the broadcaster was funded by grant-in-aid from the
Latvian government (around 60%), with the remainder coming from television commercials. Although moving LTV to
licence fee
A television licence or broadcast receiving licence is a payment required in many countries for the reception of television broadcasts or the possession of a television set. In some countries, a licence is also required to own a radio or rece ...
funding was long been debated, this was often opposed by the government, with media analysts believing that the real reason for this is that the government is reluctant to lose the control of LTV that state-funding gives it.After years of debate, in June 2018 the
Saeima
The Saeima () is the parliament of the Latvia, Republic of Latvia. It is a unicameral parliament consisting of 100 members who are elected by proportional representation, with seats allocated to political parties which gain at least 5% of the p ...
unanimously voted to amend legislation allowing the public broadcaster to exit the advertising market and be fully funded by the state budget. In 2020 the necessary funding was earmarked by the
Government of Latvia
The government of Latvia is the central government of the Republic of Latvia. The Constitution of Latvia () defines Latvia as a parliamentary republic represented by a unicameral parliament (Saeima) and the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republ ...
, with Latvijas Televīzija and Latvijas Radio exiting the ad market effective 1 January 2021.
The merger of LTV and Latvian Radio into LSM was completed on 2 January 2025
See also
*
Eastern Bloc information dissemination
Eastern Bloc media and propaganda was controlled directly by each country's communist party, which controlled the state media, censorship and propaganda organs. State and party ownership of print, television and radio media served as an important ...
*
List of Latvian television channels
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Latvijas Televizija
Television in Latvia
Companies based in Riga
Eastern Bloc mass media
European Broadcasting Union members
Publicly funded broadcasters
Television channels and stations established in 1954
Television channels in Latvia
1954 establishments in Latvia
YouTube channels launched in 2009