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

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. LTV building

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

(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. VISIEMLTVLV logo 2016

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

References

External links