TV3 (Sweden)

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TV3
TV3 logo
Launched 31 December 1987
Owned by Modern Times Group
Picture format 576i (SDTV)
Audience share 7.2% (2014, [1])
Country United Kingdom
Broadcast area Sweden
Sister channel(s) TV6
TV8
TV10
Viasat Sport
Website http://www.tv3.se/
Availability
Terrestrial
Boxer Channel 3
Channel 63 (HD)
Satellite
Viasat Channel 69
Channel 3 (HD)
Canal Digital Channel 3
Cable
Com Hem Channel 3
Channel 23 (HD)
Tele2Vision Channel 3
Canal Digital Channel 3

TV3 is a television channel targeted at a Swedish language audience and owned by Viasat (MTG). It was founded on 31 December 1987 by entrepreneur Jan Stenbeck as a joint Scandinavian channel, but Denmark soon got its own version of TV3. In the early 1990s, Sweden and Norway also separated.

After the Swedish general election in 1991, which was won by the right-winged parties, TV3 did not become the first terrestrial commercial television, as many had expected. The new government was in favor of a new channel, TV4, instead, and TV3 had to wait until after Swedish TV converted to digital between 2004 and 2007 across the different parts of the country. The reason why the Carl Bildt Ministry decided no to let TV3 become terrestrial was not explained by the government. Speculation at the time was that the channel planned to locate in Gothenburg instead of the capital, Stockholm. Although Sweden has a large area with long distances north and south, it is one of the most capital-centralized countries in Europe. MTG applied several times for analogue terrestrial broadcasting licenses, but was always declined after the 1994 election when the Social Democrats returned into power. This resulted in shorter and shorter news, poor quality productions and low viewer ratings.

It was one of the first channels on the Astra 1A satellite. However, in the cities and towns Swedish TV3 become available through cable television networks. Today the channel is available via satellite (DVB-S/S2 through the owner MTG's Viasat and also at competing Canal Digital, terrestrial (DVB-T/T2) and cable (analogue and DVB-C). Despite being a channel with commercial breaks in all programs, the channel today lacks news and live broadcasting and no longer has home-made productions. However, it is still not a free-to-air channel. Via the analogue cable networks the channel is almost free of charge and is usually included with around 15 channels for a very low monthly fee.

The programming output was mixed with several types of programs. However, in 2006, it became a channel for pure entertainment only, and dropped all daily news. After digitization and sharper competition, imported films, series and mainly American sitcoms, is now all that the channel offers. Previously, TV3 did show quite a lot of major sport events such as:

  • Ice hockey: the annual World Championships (which TV3 broadcast from 1989 for 20 years
  • Football: Swedish, European, World Cup qualifiers and Champions League as well as English Sunday league matches in the early years
  • American Football: a weekly magazine about NFL during season and broadcasting the annual "Super Bowl" live, but very late times
  • Golf: some of the majors
  • Tennis: Wimbledon and at occasions other Grand Slams

The Olympics and the big national-team football championships has until now always been broadcast on public service channels combined with the free-to-air terrestrial TV4. Though the European Cup in 1996, in England, was split between TV3 and public service. However, MTG has bought the rights for the Olympics from 2016, and some of the Olympics may be aired on TV3. The national team football championships will remain in public service and TV4 at least until the World Cup 2022.

Occasional live sport events appear on TV3. However, most of the sport that MTG has bought is broadcast on the more expensive channels. The sport on TV3 works mainly as commercials for these channels. The Champions League final of 2012 was broadcast on TV3.

The channel also showed factual programs, news (originally for 20 minutes, later only for 3 minutes only), reality series, game shows, morning children's programs and pure commercial programmes (called "Bork Bork Bork").

Acquired programming on TV3 include among others The Simpsons, NCIS, The Nanny, Weeds, Charmed and My Name Is Earl. Previous original programming included reality and game shows like Expedition: Robinson (bought from SVT in 2004) as well as some factual programs. But as of 2012, due to the many new channels that's been released after the digitization, the channel has almost entirely been reduced to a "broadcasting machine" with poor viewing rates. In 1987 only two other Swedish television channels existed, today six Swedish channels are broadcast as terrestrial "free-to-air" and another 8-10 channels competing at "TV3 level of today" (rather cheap, especially in analogue cable networks). If the channel had got the terrestrial license as supposed in 1991, the channels history would most likely been very different.

After having used a 3 surrounded by a circle as its logo since the start of the channel, on 7 September 2009 it was dropped for a new logo consisting of a 3 with a dash underneath. The new logo was developed in cooperation with the New York-based graphics studio Trollbäck + Company and comes with a complete graphical makeover and the new tagline Strong Feelings, Strong Characters.[2][3] The remake also includes some adjustments to the programming in an overall attempt to give the channel a clearer and more targeted profile. The objective of the changes was to make MTG's television channels (also including TV6 and TV8) more popular than the TV4 Group in the 15-49 demographic.[4]

Logos

References

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External links