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Afghanistan National Television
Afghan state owned television broadcaster From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Afghanistan National Television (Dari: تلویزیون ملی Televizion-e Milli-ye Afghanistan, Pashto: ملی تلویزیون Da Afghanistan Milli Televizion) is the state-owned television channel in Afghanistan. It is part of the Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA) public broadcaster.
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History
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Construction work started in March 1977 and the first experimental broadcasts started in March 1978.[1] Afghan television was launched on 19 August 1978, Afghan Independence Day, in a ceremony headed by Nur Muhammad Taraki. Since the beginning its broadcasts were in colour.[2]
In 1983 three new stations were commissioned in Kandahar (see RTA Kandahar), Jalalabad and Herat (see RTA Herat). On 2 January 1985 the broadcasts started in Jalalabad while a new station in Badakhshan Province finished its construction. On 3 February 1985 a new station opened in Ghazni,[3] while in the same month broadcasts started in Kandahar and Herat.[4] Female presenters were temporarily banned in 1992.[5] They were allowed again in April 1993, though under the condition that they had to wear black veils.[6]
During the Taliban regime, Afghanistan National Television ceased operations when television was banned, and on 8 July 1998 they ordered the destruction of all TV sets.[7][8] During this period, only a station in Badakhshan controlled by the Northern Alliance was allowed to operate, because it was outside of the areas claimed by the Taliban.[9]
After the Taliban were overthrown, television in Afghanistan restarted at 6pm on 18 November 2001,[10] with Miriam Shakebar being the first face seen.[11] The return was marked with a three-hour live broadcast in Pashto and Dari languages, as well as a reading of the Quran, music videos, cartoons, news and interviews. The Kabul station still operated on equipment dating back to the early 70s while its transmitter had a 10-watt reach and didn't cover the whole of Kabul, meaning that the city center was deprived of seeing its return.[12] The station carried movies - they still had a catalog of over 3,000 titles seized from the Taliban, mostly dubbed into Dari.[13] Not all of its video archive survived intact, as two years earlier, 400 tapes (out of a total of 9,000) were destroyed because they countered Islamic values.[14]
In 2019, RTA launched a sister channel to the main station called RTA Sport, which is dedicated to sports content.[15]
Exclusive 2008 speech
Afghanistan National TV logo from 2002
Logo until 2006
The channel (and organisation) logo until 12 March 2010, it initially appeared on-screen in a white variant
Logo until late 2021; it was initially shown in a white variant before permanently gaining the colors
RTA became famous worldwide when Afghan President Hamid Karzai made a live speech to the world minutes after dozens of insurgents attempted to assassinate him at a military parade, which was thwarted by the Afghan National Army.[16][17] The scene of the attempt was also broadcast live to RTA viewers in Afghanistan and picked up by the international media.[18]
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International availability
Afghanistan National Television became available in Europe, Middle East, North Africa, Africa, Asia Pacific, and North America on 5 January 2008. The channel's broadcasting hours were 06:00 to 00:00 (local Afghan time), corresponding to 01:30 to 19:30 UTC; later that year it started broadcasting 24 hours. As of 2018, it is no longer broadcast on the Hot Bird satellite in Europe.[19]
Currently the channel broadcasts on the TürkmenÄlem 52°E / MonacoSAT satellite to viewers in and around Afghanistan and in Europe, and western Asia. It also broadcasts on GSAT-19 for viewers in the Indian subcontinent.[20]
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See also
References
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