Television Malta

 

The Malta Television Service (MTV), was launched on 29 September 1962 as the first television service in the country, with technical backing from Rediffusion UK,^[2] although television broadcasts from neighbouring Sicily in far-southern Italy could be received in Malta from as early as 1957.^[3] In 1975, Xandir Malta (Broadcasting Malta), the precursor to the Public Broadcasting Services was established by parliament.^[4]

Italian radio transmissions, popular since the 1920s, influenced Maltese listeners. To counter this influence, British authorities granted a radio license to Rediffusion, a British broadcast company, in 1935, where it had one channel featuring BBC content and another featuring Maltese content.

On 29 September 1962, local television in Malta was introduced. The Malta Television Service was launched as a subsidiary of Rediffusion Malta. Programming on the inaugural night included a mix of speeches from Governor Sir Maurice Dorman, Archbishop Mgr Sir Michael Gonzi and Prime Minister George Borg Olivier, a number of imported British productions, some Maltese productions and the Daily Newscast.^[5] Broadcasts lasted 4.5 hours daily.

Until 1964, TVM was based at Rediffusion House in Gwardamanġa, after which it was moved to the nearby, purpose-built Television House.^[6]

In 1975, following the breakdown of discussions on the new collective agreement a sit-in strike and a lockout of management was held by Rediffusion Malta employees. On February 14 1975, the Action Committee formed to organise the sit-in announced it to the workers. At 7:38am, broadcasting was stopped and doors were closed to the management and non-Union workers. The workers, during the sit-in also established an Emergency Service, which broadcast a short news bulletin. The Rediffusion Group of Companies demanded police intervention to stop the "illegal" occupation and broadcasting. They also attempted to lease a hotel room as a temporary office but were thwarted by the GWU threatening the hotel with a strike. On 19 February 1975, regular broadcasting was resumed, however under the direction of Union officials and not Rediffusion/MTV management.

Prime Minister Dom Mintoff expressed sympathy for the workers and stated the government's support for terminal benefits. He indicated the government would intervene if the situation became critical but downplayed the urgency compared to essential services. The Rediffusion Group started legal proceedings against union officials and striking workers for violating property rights and unauthorized broadcasting. The GWU countered by arguing their actions were protected under industrial dispute regulations. This led to the MBA being silent, and 2 of its members representing the Partit Nazzjonalista publicly criticizing the Authority.^[7]

This led to the TV Service being Nationalised. Xandir Malta, the precursor to PBS was established as part of Telemalta, a government owned company.

Colour TV was introduced in Malta on 8 July 1981. This was following in the footsteps of RAI, who was already transmitting TV in colour back in the 1970s. This switch led to the slow switchover of Maltese households from owning Black and White TVs to Colour TVs. There were some broadcasting hiccups, with some presenters forgetting they were being broadcasting in colour and making some hilarious mistakes.^[8]

 

In October 2011, PBS announced a full overhaul of the TVM brand, to mark 50 years since the establishment of the Malta Television Service in 2012. The new branding pays homage to previous TVM identities, and makes use of the Maltese cross, which features heavily in the 2010s' L-Aħbarijiet title sequence. This was extended to all TVM related services, including the tvm.com.mt website and the PBS branding.

This rebrand was part of a larger step forward towards modernising the services offered by TVM. This included switching to a widescreen format (16:9) and slowly starting the transition towards broadcasting in HD.^[9]

 

In 2021, PBS announced another rebrand. The rebrand was met with criticism, since it was held in the form of a competition, and the competitors didn't even get acknowledgment for participating. The new logos for PBS, TVM and TVMNews+ were especially met with fierce criticism, after some competitors took to Facebook to share their designs.^[10]

This was an overhaul of all their stations. TVM's main focus turned into drama and family entertainment. TVM2 was rebranded to TVMNews+ which started focusing on News and Current affairs. TVM's online presence was also changed, with the URL of the online portal being changed from tvm.com.mt to tvmnews.mt^[11]

 

After the fierce criticism faced in the rebrand prior, TVM subtly rebranded their channels in early October 2023. The rebrand has not been fully executed since some services such as the tvmnews.mt website are still using the 2021 design language.

 

In March 2012, PBS started its trial transmissions on the new sister channel TVM2, which replaced Education 22 (E22). The broadcast time started at 6am and finished at around 11:30pm. TVM2 carried additional programmes, imported movies/programmes and other media which were not broadcast on the flagship TVM channel.

 

In 2021, TVM2 was rebranded to TVMNews+, and transformed from a secondary channel to the channel for news and current affairs programmes. This was met with criticism especially from the opposition since rather than having rolling news coverage, the station moved broadcasts of current affairs programmes to the secondary channel.^[12]

In 2024, TVMNews+ was rebranded once again to TVM+.^[13]

TVMSports+ was launched on 29 September 2022^[14] as part of celebrations for 60 years of TVM. Before the TVMSports+ channel was created, sport programmes used to be scattered across TVM and TVM2. During some flagship sporting events, TVM2 used to be rebranded to TVM Sports.

Parliament TV is a joint venture between the PBS and the Parliament of Malta.

On 8 March 2012, PBS also started trials of TVM HD, the first HD channel from Malta. The channel was available to all those who had Melita and could be found on channel 110.^[15] GO, Melita's main rival in the cable television industry in Malta included the service later in their schedule and also exclusively TVM2 HD. These channels were eventually retired once all TVM programmes were being broadcast in HD. The logo was used in popular culture after the channel removal.

TVMi is TVM's free streaming service. It offers livestreams of the TV Channels and Radio Channels that are operated by PBS (except Parliament TV). On demand recordings of most past programmes are also available. The service also includes the schedule for the TVM branded channels.

In 2022, TVMi was rebranded to become a more modern streaming service, in line with the 2021 rebrand. It was not updated in 2023 to match the newly rebranded 2023 design language.

TVM broadcasts a mix of news, sport, entertainment, magazine programming and children's programmes. It is funded through a government grant and commercial advertising. The majority of programmes broadcast on TVM are produced externally of PBS. PBS publishes details of the types of programmes it wishes to broadcast on TVM and production companies provide PBS with a detailed report of their proposal for the programme, this is most commonly known as a Programmes Statement of Intent or PSI.

Most programmes are broadcast in Maltese, however the Maltese speak both Maltese and English so English also features, mainly in BBC and ITV titles. Sunday evenings are dedicated to classic British comedy, and English language films are shown on Saturday evenings. The English language feed of Euronews is also broadcast daily, mainly through TVM+.

A new programme schedule was announced, including an increased number of news bulletins and a new current affairs-led breakfast show. For several years including the 2015/2016 period TVM had the highest number of viewers compared to the rest of Maltese television stations put together. Some of the current hits are Xarabank, Disset, Strada Stretta, Skjetti and news broadcasting. Statistics show that more than a quarter of the population of Malta watch these on a regular basis.^[16]

News programming on TVM is the only major TV news not produced by a political party's media apparatus in Malta. The two other major Maltese networks (One and NET Television) are owned by the Labour and Nationalist parties respectively.

TVM airs TVAM, a breakfast television program focused on news and current affairs, weekday mornings from 06:30 to 09:00.

TVM's main newscast L-Aħbarijiet ("News"), commonly referred to as L-Aħbarijiet tat-tmienja ("News at 8") is aired daily from 20:00 to 20:50, along with short news updates titled throughout the day. When important events happened, such as the death of Queen Elizabeth II and Pope Benedict XVI, TVM broadcast lengthened editions of their regular News Bulletins.^[17] When Breaking News (Aħbar Straordinarja) breaks out, TVM occasionally interrupts regular programming to broadcast a special news report^[18]

Since 2012, a nightly newscast in Maltese Sign Language has aired on sister network TVM+ at 18:00.^[19]

TVM previously carried bulletins in English from Euronews and Britain's ITN. TVM+ still regularly broadcasts streams from Euronews to fill gaps in their programming schedule.

• TVMNews Website
• TVMi Website