Latvijas Televīzija (English: Latvian Television, LTV) is the state-owned public service television company in Latvia.

 

The company is funded by grant-in-aid from the Latvian government (around 60%), with the remainder coming from television commercials. Although moving LTV to licence fee funding has long been debated, this has been consistently opposed by the government. Many media analysts believe that the real reason for this is that the government is reluctant to lose the control of LTV that state-funding gives the government.[citation needed]

 

LTV operates two channels, LTV1 in Latvian and the LTV7 (previously called LTV2) in Latvian and Russian. LTV1 is the annual broadcaster of Eurovision in Latvia, and LTV7 also broadcasts many sport events like the Olympics, different Latvian sport league and national team games, MHL, Euro and FIFA World Cup.

 

The company is a member of the European Broadcasting Union, having joined on 1 January 1993. LTV hosted the annual Eurovision Song Contest in 2003, as well as the IIHF Men's Ice Hockey Championships in 2006 and the inaugural Eurovision Choir of the Year competition in 2017.