Television in Malaysia

Malaysian television broadcasting was introduced on New Year's Eve 1963. Color television was introduced on New Year's Eve 1978. Full time colour transmissions were launched on New Year's Day 1982. There are currently 8 free-to-air television stations in Malaysia and 3 pay-to-view based television networks.

Television providers

Subscription providers are available, with differences in the number of channels, capabilities such as the programme guide (EPG), video on demand (VOD), high-definition (HD), interactive television via the red button, and coverage across Malaysia. Set-top boxes are generally used to receive these services. Households viewing TV from the internet are not tracked by the Malaysian government.

Provider	Free or pay	No. broadcast channels	VOD	HD	Red button	Country of origin	Transmission
Analogue terrestrial	Free	Varies by area, but up to 8 may be available.	No	No	No	Malaysia	Analogue terrestrial
Astro	Pay	Around 130 (Television and Radio)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Malaysia	Digital satellite
Hypp.TV	Subscription	35	No	No	No	Malaysia	IPTV
UniFi	Subscription	18	Yes	Yes	No	Malaysia	IPTV
DETV	Subscription	33	No	No	No	Malaysia	IPTV
U Television	Non-freePay	Un­known	Un­known	Un­known	Un­known	Malaysia	Digital terrestrial
TrueVisions (from Thailand)	Non-freePay	200 (Thai+Inter, no MAS)	No	Yes	No	Thailand	Digital satellite from Thailand

Analogue terrestrial television

This is currently the traditional way of receiving television in Malaysia, however it has now largely been supplanted by digital providers. There are 11 channels; three of them are government public-owned by Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) the 2 television channels terrestrial free-to-air TV1 and TV2 while TV Alhijrah are public government-owner by Al Hijrah Media Corporation which TV3, NTV7, 8TV and TV9 are private commercial-owned by Media Prima, Worldview Broadcasting Channel are private commercial-owned by Worldview Broadcasting Channel (Malaysia) Sendirian Berhad are private commercial-owned by Media Citra Bherhad. Analogue terrestrial transmissions were scheduled to be switched off in phases as part of the digital switchover, expected to be completed in 2020 as a recommendation from Southeast Asia, however, it does not come to effect. The frequency has been moved to avoid signal jamming with television in Thailand.

Digital terrestrial television

In 2005, the Ministry of Information announced their plan to digitalise nationwide free-to-air TV broadcasts led by Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM). Trial broadcasts were undertaken, involving one thousand households in the Klang Valley from September 2006 till February 2007. According to the then-Deputy Minister of Information, Chia Kwang Chye, the trial received "very positive" feedback, i.e. "more than 60 percent said the quality of the signal ranged from good to very good. Over 88 percent said the picture quality improved, while 70 percent said the sound quality was better."

On 1 January 2008, TV3 announced that they were carrying out their own tests using a completely different system, T-DMB. However their test transmission is available only to areas surrounding their main headquarters at Sri Pentas, Bandar Utama, Petaling Jaya. The test signals consists of a single DAB stream, Fly FM, and two T-DMB streams, TV3 and a Hot Visual, which carries a slide show with audio signal streamed from the radio station Hot FM.

Despite a success of RTM's pilot trials, the digital terrestrial television transition faced many problems. These problems stemmed from the lesser enthautism of content providers toward the digitisation, with the exception Les Copaque, and the need to improve the nation's Internet broadband infrastructure. With the resignation of then Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi and the succession of Najib Tun Razak, the project by RTM was deferred indefinitely.

Satellite television

Malaysia's sole satellite television operator, MEASAT Broadcast Network Systems (a subsidiary of Astro All Asia Networks) launched the Astro service in launch of the MEASAT-1 satellite as part of Malaysia's commercialisation of space, Astro commenced broadcasting on June 1, 1996 with an initial bouquet of 22 television channels and 8 radio channel.

Name	Network	Owner	Launch date	Channel (KL)	Broadcasting area	Transmitted area	Broadcasting hours (UTC+08:00)	Runtime	Formerly known as
TV1	Radio Televisyen Malaysia	Government	December 28, 1963	5 VHF	Klang Valley	Kuala Lumpur	05:30-01:00	19.5 hours	Televisyen Malaysia (31 December 1963-16 November 1969) Rangkaian Pertama (17 November 1969-27 December 1978) Malaysia 1 (28 December 1978-31 December 1986)
TV2			November 19, 1969	8 VHF	Klang Valley	Kuala Lumpur	24/7	24-hours	Rangkaian Kedua (17 November 1969-6 May 1979) Malaysia 2 (7 May 1979-31 December 1986)
TV3	Sistem Televisyen Malaysia Berhad	Media Prima Berhad	June 1, 1984	12 VHF	Klang Valley	Kuala Lumpur
NTV7	Natseven Televisyen Sedang Berhad		April 7, 1998	37 UHF	Klang Valley	Kuala Lumpur	07:00-02:00	19-hours
8TV	Metropolitan Televisyen Sedang Berhad		January 8, 2004	27 UHF	Klang Valley	Kuala Lumpur	07:00-02:00	19-hours	MetroVision Channel 8 (1 July 1995-1 November 1999)
TV9	Channel 9 Sedang Berhad		April 22, 2006	33 UHF	Klang Valley	Kuala Lumpur	06:30-01:30	19-hours	Channel 9 (9 September 2003-1 February 2005)
TV AlHijrah	AlHijrah Media Corporation	Government	December 7, 2010	55 UHF	Klang Valley	Kuala Lumpur	06:00-00:00	18-hours
Worldview Broadcasting Channel	Worldview Broadcasting Channel (Malaysia) Sedirian Berhad	Malaysia News Television	April 1, 2012	39 UHF	Klang Valley	Kuala Lumpur	18:00-00:00	6-hours

Channel	Name	Language	Group
1	TV1	Malaysian	Free-to-air
2	TV2
3	TV3
4	Astro Ria		Astro channels
5	Astro SuperSport	English
6	Astro AEC	Mandarin
7	Astro Wah Lai Toi	Cantonese
8	Astro Vaanavil	Tamil
9	CNN International	English	News
10	Discovery Channel	English (Malaysian subtitle)	Education
11	NBC Asia
12	ESPN	English	Sports
13	STAR Sports
14	HBO	English (Malaysian subtitle)	Movies
15	STAR Movies
16	Metro Goldwyn Mayer
17	Cartoon Network & Turner Classic Movies		Kids
18	STAR World		Entertainment
19	Channel [V] International
20	MTV
21	Phoenix Satellite Television	Mandarin	Jade
22	STAR Movies	Cantonese (Mandarin-English subtitle)

It currently holds exclusive rights from the Malaysian government to offer satellite television broadcasting services in the country through the year 2017. The rights was extended to 2022 recently. Now, big ugly dishes are still found in Malaysia.

There are also laws preventing too many advertisements from being aired on both radio and television, similar to the United Kingdom.

On December 2011, prime minister Najib Tun Razak announced that free satellite television, NJOI will be available to customer starting February 2012.

International broadcast

Malaysians in the United States and Canada can view TV shows instantly from Malaysia by SES-1 satellite, including television from Thailand and Laos, the channel broadcast are Malay Fun TV, Malaysia Sports (these stations are Malay-language TV in the USA), TVSelangor, Global TV (live from Malaysia).

Cable television

Mega TV was launched in 1994 by TV3 as the only cable television service. However, it faced stiff competition from the satellite television network Astro, and failed to expand its content. Because of this, it closed down in 2001, and was replaced by its competitor since then.

IP television (IPTV)

In contrast to Internet TV, IPTV refers to services operated and controlled by a single company, who may also control the 'Final Mile' to the consumers' premises.

DETV, a new paid television provider owned by REDtone, provides television and video-on-demand services on the IPTV platform, targeting the Chinese audiences in Malaysia.

TM is expected to launch its IPTV services, currently branded Hypp.TV in the second quarter of 2009, and now conducts trials with 1,000 selected households in Klang Valley, Penang and Kulim, Kedah.

TM then successfully released their IPTV based on their HSBB Unifi service which only available to Unifi subscriber.

Mobile television

Maxis, DiGi and U Mobile provide mobile television services for reception on third generation mobile phones. They consist of a mixture of regular channels as well as made for mobile channels with looped content. Maxis TV now offers more than 20 channels to Maxis 3G subscribers who own compatible mobile phones. Yet, Maxis is expected to roll out broadcast mobile TV services based on DVB-H in the near future.

U Mobile also provides broadcast mobile TV to users of selected 3G phones, also based on DVB-H.

In October 2008, Astro launched Astro Mobile TV which currently provides 18 channels, all of which are mobile versions of its existing channels, seven of them are under its own brand. This service is only available to Maxis subscribers with compatible 2.5G or 3G handsets, and does not reprise its role from Maxis TV.

Internet television

Television received via the Internet may be free, subscription or pay-per-view, multicast, unicast, or peer-to-peer, streamed or downloaded, and use a variety of distribution technologies. Playback is normally via a computer and broadband Internet connection, although digital media receivers or media centre computers can be used for playback on televisions, such as a computer equipped with Windows Media Center.

See also

• List of television stations in Malaysia
• List of Malay language television channels