MRTV (TV network)

Television service in Myanmar was first introduced in June 1979 as a test trial in Yangon{{cite book | title=The River of Lost Footsteps--Histories of Burma | page=371 | author=Thant Myint-U | year=2006 | publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux | isbn=978-0-374-16342-6}} following an agreement between Japan's Matsushita Electric and Burma's Heavy Industries Corp. for the production of television sets.{{cite web |title=Bulletin of the Anglo-Japanese Economic Institute: The Economic and Trade Picture

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0-yGAAAAIAAJ |access-date=3 April 2024 |website=Google Books |date=1979 }} MRTV (at the time Burma Television) was first launched on 3 June 1980,{{cite news | title=Junta Launches New PR Offensive | work=The Irrawaddy | date=1 August 2001 | url=http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=3645 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100812070953/http://irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=3645 | archive-date=12 August 2010 | df=dmy-all }} from Yangon on VHF channel 6, using a 10 KW transmitter broadcasting to a 70km radius,{{cite web |url=https://www.worldradiohistory.com/INTERNATIONAL/Megahertz/Megahertz-1984-03.pdf |title=Megahertz |date=March 1984 |accessdate=2 April 2024 |page=32 }} with broadcasts in colour (some sources erroneously say that MRTV started as a monochrome service{{cite web |url=https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Encyclopedias/Archive-Encyclopedia-of-Television/Encyclopedia-of-Television-Vol-4.pdf |title=Encyclopedia of Television: S-Z |date=2004 |accessdate=2 April 2024 |page=2148 }}) beginning on 1 November.{{Cite web|url=https://www.irrawaddy.com/specials/on-this-day/day-1980-color-tv-arrived-myanmar.html|title = On This Day | the Day in 1980 when Color TV Arrived in Myanmar|date = November 2019}} Regular television service was formally launched in 1981{{cite journal | author=May Thaw | url=http://www.mmtimes.com/feature/electronic/e09.htm | title=Broadcasting options expanding | journal=Myanmar Times | date=12–18 March 2007 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203194721/http://www.mmtimes.com/feature/electronic/e09.htm | archive-date=3 December 2013 | df=dmy-all }} using the NTSC standard.{{cite book|author1=Michael Hegarty|author2=Anne Phelan|author3=Lisa Kilbride|title=Classrooms for Distance Teaching and Learning: A Blueprint|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5YjHecPlPS8C&pg=PA260|date=1 January 1998|publisher=Leuven University Press|isbn=978-90-6186-867-5|pages=260–}} The station was built with assistance from the Japanese government and had plans to extend its signal nationwide by the end of the decade.{{cite web |url=https://worldradiohistory.com/UK/Practical/Television/80s/Television-Servicing-UK-1980-02.pdf |title=Television |date=February 1980 |accessdate=5 February 2024 |page=207 }} The service was also available in Mandalay from the beginning.{{cite web |title=Quarterly Economic Review of Thailand, Burma

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QPMbAQAAMAAJ |access-date=3 April 2024 |website=Google Books |date=1984 }}

Burma Television started accepting commercial advertising in 1988.{{cite web |title=Xinhua News Bulletin

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bdsaAQAAMAAJ |access-date=3 April 2024 |website=Google Books |date=November 1988 }} That same year, it reached 53,95% of the national population, rising to 82,45% after 1990.{{cite journal |author1=Zeng Xiangmin |title=发展中的缅甸广播电视 |journal=《现代传播》 |date=2001年 |issue=5 |pages=19–20 |url=https://www.cnki.com.cn/Article/CJFDTOTAL-XDCB200105004.htm |accessdate=2023-12-19}}{{rp|20}} Until the founding of Myawaddy Television by the Ministry of Defense in 1995, it was the only television channel in the country.{{cite journal |author1=Wang Yijun |title=东盟10国的主要新闻媒体 |journal=《印刷世界》 |date=2003年 |issue=6 |page=29 |url=http://www.bhlib.com/e/action/ShowInfo.php?classid=28&id=4684 |accessdate=2023-12-07 |archive-date=2023-12-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231207180836/http://www.bhlib.com/e/action/ShowInfo.php?classid=28&id=4684 |url-status=live }}

In 2005, MRTV had 195 television relay stations throughout the country.{{cite news | url=http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/261229/myanmar_to_launch_second_fm_radio_station/ | title=Myanmar to Launch Second FM Radio Station | date=5 October 2005 | work=Xinhua | publisher=Red Orbit}}

In October 2013, MRTV started broadcasting on digital terrestrial with DVB-T2 System, same as most ASEAN Countries. 18 TV channels and 5 Myanmar Radio channels are on MRTV multiplex system. MRTV plans the news interface, to the modern style of starting sequences and will have well-decorated news room. The broadcasting hours also increased to 18 hours (previously 10 hours).
On February 15, 2015, MRTV adding 5 new TV channels to their Multplex Play Out system, such as MRTV-4, Channel 7, 5 Plus, MNTV and Channel 9.

On March 24, 2018, MRTV added 5 new TV channels to their Multiplex Play out System, such as Mizzima TV, DVB TV, Channel K, YTV and Fortune TV.

On January 16, 2024, MRTV updated its in-house channels and free-to-air channels into High Definition (HD) and added 5 new TV channel to their MRTV DTH System, such as Mahar HD, Mahar Esports HD, New Image Channel HD, Readers Channel and Maharbawdi Channel.{{Cite news|title=Myanmar to get five more TV channels|url=http://www.mizzima.com/news-domestic/myanmar-get-five-more-tv-channels|last=Ko|first=Thet|date=19 February 2018|publisher=Mizzima News}}

Program's broadcast on Main MRTV HD channel.

• Relay Stations List on above, include only 35 Main Transmitter Site. there are over 150 relay stations across the country. that serves for the many other small towns and rural areas.
• Only Yangon transmitter site broadcast 24 hours. other relay stations usually shutdown their transmitter at 12am (Midnight) to save budget.
• Relay station's mark with RED Colour are out of service until further notice. Due to the ongoing Myanmar Civil War

To reduce relying on the Relay stations and fight against anti-government TV channels, MRTV launch its own Free to View Direct to Home service called MRTV DTH on February 1, 2022. It offers 20 TV channels, using Intelsat 39 62°E and Thaicom 6 78.5°E. Which is some of the beams on those satellite are ranted by Government of Myanmar.{{Cite news|title=၇၅ နှစ်မြောက် စိန်ရတုပြည်ထောင်စုနေ့ကို ကြိုဆိုဂုဏ်ပြုသောအားဖြင့် နိုင်ငံတော်စီမံအုပ်ချုပ်ရေးကောင်စီ တာဝန် ထမ်းဆောင်ခဲ့သည့် တစ်နှစ်မြောက် နှစ်ပတ်လည်နေ့ အထိမ်းအမှတ် မြန်မာ့အသံနှင့် ရုပ်မြင်သံကြားစိန်ရတုပြတိုက်၊ MRTV News Channel နှင့်MRTV DTHစနစ်ဖွင့်လှစ်|url=https://mrtv.gov.mm/news-138706|last=Ko|first=Thet|date=1 February 2022|publisher=Myanmar Radio and Television}}

{{Cite news|title=ပြန်ကြားရေး ဝန်ကြီးဌာန၊ ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီး ဦးမောင်မောင်အုန်း MRTV DTH စနစ်တွင် ရုပ်သံလိုင်းများ ထည့်သွင်းထုတ်လွှင့်နိုင်ရန် Request For Proposal တင်သွင်းသည့် ကုမ္ပဏီများက အဆိုပြုလွှာများ လာရောက်ရှင်းလင်းတင်ပြပွဲသို့ တက်ရောက်|url=https://mrtv.gov.mm/en/news-204728|last=Daw May Thaw|first=La Win|date=27 July 2023|publisher=Myanmar Radio and Television}} All Channels from MRTV DTH system from both satellite are available for free of charge.
However, most of the General Entertainment Channels may use Encryption/Scrambled system to prevent spill over.

• Myanmar Radio and Television (Parent organisation)
• MITV
• MRTV-4
• MWD
• Television in Myanmar
• Media in Myanmar

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.mrtv.gov.mm Official site of MRTV] (Burmese)

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Category:Mass media in Myanmar

Category:Television channels in Myanmar

Category:Television channels and stations established in 1979

Category:Mass media in Yangon

Category:Television in Myanmar

Category:Publicly funded broadcasters

Category:State media