Swedish television

Television in Sweden began in Sweden in 1954 with the first test transmissions, prior to the opening of the first station, Radiotjänst, two years later. A second channel was launched in 1969. Commercial television arrived in the 1980s through cable television and in 1992, the country's first terrestrial commercial channel was launched.

The shutdown of the PAL analogue service in Sweden started on September 19, 2005, and was finished on October 29, 2007.

Typically, non-Swedish content maintains the original language soundtrack while subtitled into Swedish. This includes foreign interviews embedded into news and magazine programmes as well as SVT's Finnish news bulletin (Uutiset). Conversely, interview responses given in Swedish aired on Finnish or Sami news bulletins are subtitled into the main language of that respective bulletin. Non-Swedish programming intended for children is, however, usually dubbed into Swedish. Regardless of intended audience, some shows receive a Swedish title, which is used in programme schedules.

Many of the channels targeting Sweden are not actually broadcasting from Sweden, but from other countries (mostly from the United Kingdom). This is done to avoid the Swedish Broadcasting Law which restricts advertising heavily.

In addition to the channels listed below, viewers close to the border with Norway, Denmark or Finland can receive channels from those respective countries as a result of signal spillover and some satellite subscription packages offer some channels from these countries.

The first trial television broadcasts in Sweden were launched on October 29, 1954, from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Prior to this, some Swedes could watch television originating in other countries, notably Denmark, where thrice-weekly television broadcasts by the public service broadcaster, Statsradiofonien (now Danmarks Radio) had begun in 1951.

The official launch of television in Sweden took place on September 4, 1956 when the Radiotjänst Television service was launched on the high power Nacka transmitter. The service was funded by a license fee with no advertising and was operated by Radiotjänst, which was also in charge of the nation's two radio networks. Daily broadcasts started in 1957 and Radiotjänst was renamed as Sveriges Radio. The first television news programme in Sweden, Aktuellt, was broadcast on 2 September 1958 and continues to this day on SVT2.

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