 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(March 2014) |
| Company type | Public sector |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1960 |
| Headquarters | Cairo |
The Egyptian Television Network is a television service run by the Egyptian Radio and Television Union. It commenced programming in 1960. Today it has more than three national channels, and several broadcast channels on satellite.
Though the decision to start television service was taken earlier by the late King Farouk, the British-French-Israeli Suez invasion delayed work until late 1959. Egypt then signed a contract with Radio Corporation of America to provide the country with a television network and the capacity to manufacture sets. Construction of the radio and television center was completed in 1960, and the first Egyptian television broadcast started on July 21, 1960.
Broadcast transmission began on July 21, 1960, at 07:00, the Egyptian TV was started with a five-hour-transmission. The transmission began with Qur'anic recitation followed by the opening of the parliament and a speech by President Gamal Abdel Nasser. This was followed by the national anthem, then the news bulletin and finally ended with Qur'anic recitation.
Broadcast began from Maspero television building whose transmission began in 1960. Ever since, the Egyptian television maintained its service of broadcasting through the different channels which serve different classes of the Egyptian society.
The big building that takes its name after the French Egyptologist, Gaston Maspero, is deemed a distinguished site with its circular shape that receives over 30 thousand individuals daily. Egypt is the first country in the Middle East and Africa to provide TV broadcasting.
On August 13, 1970 a new decree established the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) and created four distinct sectors: Radio, Television, Engineering and Finance, each of which had a chairman who reported directly to the Minister of Information.
After the 1973 war, both television production and transmission facilities were upgraded to color transmission under the SECAM system. The Egyptian broadcasting changed from SECAM to PAL in 1992.
The Egyptian television began with a six-hour-broadcasting channel; however the broadcasting hours changed to 13 hours/day. Later, in 1961, a second channel was launched, and a third channel was launched in 1962. Thus, the total broadcasting hours of the three channels was 25–30 hours/day. The contents of the shows reflected people's interests at the time.
In the early 1980s, the Egyptian TV witnessed development in all domains and the orientation was to activate the media sovereignty principle through engineering and geographic expansion for a state-wide-coverage.
The first private Egyptian channel "Dream TV" [1] was established on November 2, 2001. The channel is owned by the Egyptian businessman Ahmed Bahgat. In 2002, another channel "el-Mehwer TV" [2] was established which is now owned by Dr. Hassan Rateb and the Egyptian radio and television union.
Since its establishment, Egyptian television has always been regarded as the voice of Egyptian government and the ruling political party. Both the ERTU and the Television sector chairmen are appointed by the Minister of Information. Terrestrial channels, Egyptian satellite channel and specialized Nile channels are under direct government supervision, operation and ownership.
Private channels have a considerable freedom but with some limits. According to a study by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights (CIRS), during presidential elections both state-owned television channels and independent channels devoted more time to cover Mubarak's campaign than for the other nine candidates. [3]
Another example for government intervention in private channels was banning the Egyptian famous journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal from appearing in Dream TV. Dream aired a lecture Heikal gave at the American University in Cairo in which he commented on speculation surrounding the bequeathing of the presidency in Egypt. This was the last time he appeared on Egyptian TV. [4]
According to Reporters without borders 2005 report; Egyptian media ranks 143rd out of 167 countries in freedom of the press. [5]
Egypt has long been the cultural and informational centre of the Middle East and North Africa, and Cairo is the region's largest publishing and broadcasting centre.
Color television or colour television is a television transmission technology that includes color information for the picture, so the video image can be displayed in color on the television set. It improves on the monochrome or black-and-white television technology, which displays the image in shades of gray (grayscale). Television broadcasting stations and networks in most parts of the world upgraded from black-and-white to color transmission between the 1960s and the 1980s. The invention of color television standards was an important part of the history and technology of television.
Television broadcasting in Greece began in 1966, preceded in 1951 by statute 1963 permitting television broadcasting.
The Israel Broadcasting Authority was Israel's public broadcaster from 1948 to 2017, succeeded by the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation.
Mohamed Hassanein Heikal was an Egyptian journalist. For 17 years (1957–1974), he was editor-in-chief of the Cairo newspaper Al-Ahram and was a commentator on Arab affairs for more than 50 years.
Television in Israel refers to television broadcasting services in the State of Israel, inaugurated on March 24, 1966. Initially, there was one state-owned channel, operated jointly by the Israel Broadcasting Authority and the Israeli Educational Television. In 1986, a second state-regulated channel was launched. This channel became a state-regulated commercial channel in 1993. An additional commercial channel was introduced in 2002, followed by the introduction of three commercial niche channels: an Israeli Russian-speaking channel, a channel of Israeli popular music and an Arabic-speaking channel. Colour transmissions were introduced gradually around 1977 and 1979. Multichannel cable television service became available to subscribers gradually since 1989, although illegal cable TV stations were present in the big cities during the 1980s. Satellite-based multichannel service has been available since 2000.
Nile TV International is a public Egyptian television channel. It is the second Egyptian satellite television news network in Egypt, and the first Arab satellite channel to broadcast its programs in foreign languages; English, French, and formerly Hebrew.
Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française was the French national public broadcaster television organization established on 9 February 1949 to replace the post-war "Radiodiffusion Française" (RDF), which had been founded on 23 March 1945 to replace Radiodiffusion Nationale (RN), created on 29 July 1939. It was replaced in its turn, on 26 June 1964, by the notionally less-strictly government controlled Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française (ORTF), which itself lasted until the end of 1974.
Television in Vietnam began to appear in the mid-1960s in Saigon, with the appearance of Saigon Television Station. In 1970, in the North, Voice of Vietnam broadcast the first test television program. In the late 1970s, color television was introduced and broadcast experimentally. Today, television in Vietnam is available in many modes of broadcasting, with many national and local channels, broadcast or pay with more than 200 channels available to viewers. Vietnam completed the digital television transitions on December 28, 2020.
The Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) is the national state broadcaster of the Republic of Mauritius, that is the islands of Mauritius, Rodrigues, and Agaléga. The historical headquarters in Curepipe were relocated in Réduit, Moka. It also operates a station in Rodrigues. The MBC programmes are broadcast in 12 languages, notably French, Creole, English, Hindi, Urdu, Bhojpuri, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Mandarin/Cantonese, and Hakka. MBC provides 17 television channels in Mauritius, four in Rodrigues and two in Agaléga, as well as seven radio channels.
Television in Iceland is composed of the public broadcasting service of RÚV, five free-to-view channels and a number of subscription channels provided by private broadcasters. Broadcasts began in 1955 when the American Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) started an English-language television service broadcasting from Naval Air Station Keflavik, which operated until 2006. The first Icelandic-language television broadcasts started in September 1966 with the launch of RÚV, originally called Sjónvarpið. In 1986, the first privately owned TV station, Stöð 2, began broadcasts. In recent years, the emergence of foreign internet streaming services, such as Netflix and Disney+, has seen a shift from domestic providers provide similar on demand streaming services such as Síminn Premium and Stöð 2+.
The National Media Authority, known until 2017 as Egyptian Radio and Television Union, is the public broadcaster of Egypt, operated by the Egyptian government. It is a member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the Arab States Broadcasting Union (ABSU).
The 2009–10 Egyptian Premier League is the fifty-third season of the Egyptian Premier League since its establishment in 1948. A total of 16 teams are contesting the league, with Al Ahly the defending champions for the fifth year in a row and for the thirty-fourth time in total. The Egyptian season began on 6 August 2009 and ended on 17 May 2010.
The Central Television of the USSR was the state television broadcaster of the Soviet Union.
The Ministry of Information was the ministry in charge of state-owned media and press in Egypt, and for regulating the practices through affiliate agencies between 1971 until its latest dissolution in 2021.
Dream TV is an Arabic satellite television channel headquartered in Media Production City, Egypt. Dream TV was the first Egyptian private television channel, and offered two channels on Nilesat: Dream 1 and Dream 2, until 2015. The network provides cultural programming, news analysis, and a platform for talk shows - most notably "10:00 pm" with Mona el-Shazly on Dream 2.
The Wael Mikhael incident occurred on 9 October 2011 when two Egyptian journalists, Wael Mikhael and Mina Daniel, were killed while covering a demonstration that turned into a violent clash between the Egyptian military and Coptic protesters. Mikhael was reporting as a cameraman for the Coptic Orthodox Christian TV station in Cairo and was shot in the head while filming what was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration. Daniel was reporting as a political activist blogger and was shot in the shoulder and leg.
Television in Egypt is mainly received through free satellite, while analog terrestrial represents 41% of total viewers. The Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) said the average time an Egyptian spends watching television a day is 180 minutes, while Egyptian channels recorded 170,000 hours of broadcast in 2019.
Television was first introduced to Iran in 1958, as a privately-owned and commercially-operated enterprise, before being nationalised, remaining a state-controlled monopoly, first of National Iranian Radio and Television, and following the Iranian Revolution in 1979, of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.
