Korean Central Television (KCTV; Korean: 조선중앙텔레비죤; MR: Chosŏn Chungang T’ellebijyon) is a television service operated by the Korean Central Broadcasting Committee, a state-owned broadcaster in North Korea. It is broadcast terrestrially via the Pyongyang TV Tower in Moranbong-guyok, Pyongyang, streamed via the government-run internet television service Manbang, and also uplinked via satellite.
. . . Korean Central Television . . .
KCTV was established on 1 September 1953 as Pyongyang Television after the Korean War ended. Kim Il-sung personally envisioned that the time was ripe for television broadcasting in North Korea, but this was not yet to happen. Thus, the young service began an 8-year period of preparation for commencement of television broadcasts, with the help of the national government.
The station later was renamed as Central Television Broadcasting System in 1961, and conducted on 1 September the same year its first test broadcasts.
The CTBS-DPRK officially began operations on 3 March 1963 at 19:00 (7:00 pm) KST based in Pyongyang, broadcasting two hours between 19:00 (7:00 pm) until 21:00 (9:00 pm) KST on weekdays only, and then expanding to 4 and later 6 hours.
The network carried live the whole proceedings of the 5th Workers’ Party of Korea Congress held on 1 October 1970.
The CTBS would later be renamed Korean Central Television (KCTV) and was officially relaunched at 17:00 (5:00 pm) local time on 3 January 1973 (the first working day in 1973 in North Korea). The broadcasting hours were only on weekdays (workdays in North Korea) and closed on weekends and national holidays.
KCTV officially began color television broadcasts on 1 July 1974 and broadcast the first live color telecast in preparation for the 7th Asian Games held in Tehran via satellite transmission on 1 September 1974, the first network to do so. KCTV was the first live color television channel to broadcast the New Year’s Eve in color on 31 December 1974, and in 1975 began weekend broadcasts as well. KCTV started their full-time color broadcasts on 1 September 1977.
The first broadcast received via satellite television broadcasts was the opening of the 22nd Summer Olympic Games on 19 July 1980.
KCTV started broadcasting on national holidays on 1 March 1981. On national holidays, the broadcasting time of each station is the same as weekends save for major ones. The channel was the official host broadcaster of the 1989 13th World Festival of Youth and Students.
In September 2012, China Central Television (CCTV) announced that it had recently donated 5 million yuan in new broadcasting equipment to KCTV, which was to be used to improve its programming and prepare for digital television.[2][3]
The station had been producing a growing number of programmes in the 16:9 aspect ratio since 2012. However, it was still natively broadcasting in a 4:3 format. On 19 January 2015, KCTV began experimental widescreen high-definition transmissions on satellite, although only the live announcer greeting on sign-on and sign-off was shown at full resolution, with all other programming shown letterboxed and widescreen programmes therefore being windowboxed.[4][5]
Native broadcasts in 16:9 widescreen with stereophonic sound started on 4 December 2017, with KCTV being one of the last state-run broadcasters to do so, albeit several years after other developed and even developing nations have done so.[6]
. . . Korean Central Television . . .