IN BLACK AND WHITE AND IN COLOR

TVR.RO | actualizat: Miercuri, 01 August 2012

Romanian television history began with us

On December 31^st 1956, we started our initial broadcasts from an improvised studio on Moliere Street, near TVR’s current headquarters. The channel operated within Romanian Radio-Television, which was lead at that time by a committee chosen by the Council of Ministers. TVR had about 150 employees and a single OB-van, a present from the Russians, according to Ilie Băbeanu (76). He has been there from the very beginning, working as a technician.

For a few years the shows were only broadcast live. In 1959, three years after its establishment, the television had around 1,000 subscribers. Băbeanu states that the fee, „which was worth about two loaves of bread”, was automatically registred when one bought a TV set and was paied by post. Even though color TV has been on everybody’s lips from the beginning of the 60s, the first color broadcast took place in 1983.

In December 1989, the station had broadcast live the fall of the communist regime, the same regime for which it had served as a propaganda outlet. After 1990, “The Free Romanian Television”, as it had called itself during the events of December, entered a new era.

“Ceausescu had never set foot in the television studios. The word spread that he hated it”, said Ilie Băbeanu (photo) who worked for TVR from 1959 to 2010.

1956 - The television station begins to broadcast.
1957 - The television station broadcasts 600 hours a year.
1958 - News programs are born.
1959 - The station has 1,000 subscribers and is broadcasting 13 hours a day (8 a.m. -11 p.m. with a two hour break after lunch).
1965 - The network coverage reaches 40% of the country. The television network has 500,000 subscribers.
1968 - A new telecenter with 6 studios starts operations. The television network has 700 employees and is broadcasting 3,000 hours per year. A second channel starts its activity.
1970 - The network has a new headquarters on Calea Dorobanţilor, built after the BBC model. Network coverage reaches 83% of the country. The television has 1.5 million subscribers.
1985 - The first color broadcast takes place. TVR broadcasts two hours a day.
1989 - Romanian Television is the only television network worldwide that broadcasts live the fall of the communist regime.
1993 - Romanian Television becomes a member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
1994 - Law 41/1994 is passed and the Romanian Television Society is born.
1997 - TVR begins to use digital broadcasting.
2004 - TVR has a new visual identity.
2008 - TVR launches the experimental channel TVR HD.
2011 - TVR launches mobile apps for video content and starts an online video library.