Vĩnh Long Radio - Television Station (THVL; Vietnamese: Đài Phát thanh – Truyền hình Vĩnh Long) is a Vietnamese television network owned by the People's Committee of Vĩnh Long Province. It is the largest station in the Southwest region and is in the top 3 television networks with the highest rating index in the country besides VTV and HTV.
 | |
| Type | Television broadcasting |
|---|---|
| Country | |
| Availability | Worldwide |
| Founded | April 1977 |
| Headquarters | Vĩnh Long Radio and Television Technical Center, No. 50 Pham Thai Buong Street, District 4, Vĩnh Long, Vĩnh Long Province, Vietnam |
| Owner | Vĩnh Long Province People's Committee |
Key people | Lê Thanh Tuấn Manager Huỳnh Tấn Phát Deputy Director (in charge of content) Dao Thi Tuyet Van Deputy Director (in charge of administrative organization) Võ Thành Nhân Deputy Director (in charge of technology) |
Transmission test | 2 September 1977 |
Launch date | 22 December 1977 |
Former names | Đài Phát thanh Cửu Long (1977–1984) Đài Phát thanh - Truyền hình Cửu Long (1984–1992) |
Picture format | 1080i HDTV (downscaled to 16:9 576i for the SDTV feed) |
Official website | thvl |
History
Vĩnh Long Radio - Television Station was formerly known as Cửu Long Radio Station (Đài Phát thanh tỉnh Cửu Long). The station officially launched on December 22, 1977. In 1984, Kowloon Radio and Television Station officially began broadcasting television programs and was renamed Kowloon Radio and Television Station. In 1986, Cửu Long Radio - Television Station built its own television transmitter to improve the coverage of television signals in the province.[1] In 1989, the TV station installed a 10-kilowatt radio transmitter, whose radio waves can cover the entire province and neighboring provinces. On December 26, 1991, Cửu Long Province was reorganized into Vinh Long Province and Tra Vinh Province. Vinh Long Radio and Television Station was separated from Kowloon Radio and Television Station and began broadcasting radio and television programs in 1992.[2][3] Since 2006, Yonglong Radio and Television has begun to significantly increase the self-production rate of radio and television programs, and has put forward the slogan of "providing viewers with the services they need, rather than providing them with the services they have".[2] In 2008, the station established its own cable TV network, THVLC, with 80 local and foreign TV channels available for users to watch.[4][5] In March 2013, Vinh Long Radio and Television was awarded the Third-Class Independence Medal by Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang.[6] THVL has increased its investment in the Internet in recent years. In addition to opening an official YouTube channel, the station has also launched a THVLi application website and mobile application to broadcast its own programs on the Internet in real time.[7] In December 2016, THVL closed its terrestrial analog TV channel and switched to digital broadcasting.[8]
Operations
THVL has 4 channels:
| Channel | Launch date | Information |
|---|---|---|
| THVL1 - News, Politics and General Entertainment | 22 December 1992 | The channel mainly focused on news, politics and entertainment programming. |
| THVL2 - General Entertainment | 1 January 2005 | The channel mainly focused on entertainment programming. |
| THVL3 - Vietnamese Movies and General Entertainment | 2008-2009 (first incarnation) 3 February 2019 (second incarnation) | The channel mainly focused on Vietnamese Movies and entertainment programming. |
| THVL4 - Culture, Tourism and Entertainment | 30 April 2019 | The channel mainly focused on cultural, tourism and entertainment programming. |
Services
THVL has:
- Sóng FM, a radio station, broadcasts on FM 90.2 MHz.
- THVLi, a streaming service that streams all channels from THVL and its programming for 24 hours, 7 days a week.
- THVL Audio, an audio service that you can listen to radio stations from THVL.
Controversies
Some news and reportage programs of Vinh Long Radio and Television Station have repeatedly presented information that is biased, one-sided and false.
The program "Lời cảnh báo" episode 385 aired on THVL1 in August 2017 talked about a series of negative sides of anime, the ecchi aspect was exploited quite strongly. But when giving an example of ecchi in anime, Dai put an entire hentai series on the screen and equated it to an anime. Just a few hours after the video was posted, a series of anime fans and Facebook users launched a general attack on Dai's Facebook with the purpose of forcing Dai to apologize to a series of anime fans in Vietnam. In addition, due to too much spam in the comments section, the station had to turn off the review feature due to receiving too many 1-star reviews. After that, the station deleted the above video.[9]
The program "Câu chuyện cuộc sống" with the theme "Robbery and murder mission game - Entertainment or promoting crime" broadcast on THVL1 on August 2, 2018, said that the survival video games, including PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (also known as PUBG) and Minecraft are "violently inclined". After the video aired, it received a lot of criticism from the gaming community. After that, Radio itself deleted the video.[10] However, in May 2019, Dai posted another video with the title "Online game addiction is more difficult to overcome than drug addiction". This video was also deleted after receiving a large number of dislikes on YouTube.[11]