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 Logo of Vietnam Television since 2013 | |
| Type | State media |
|---|---|
| Branding | VTV |
| Country |  Vietnam |
First air date | September 7, 1970; 55 years ago (1970-09-07) |
| Availability | Vietnam Worldwide |
| Headquarters | 43 Nguyen Chi Thanh St, Giang Vo ward,Hanoi,Vietnam |
| Owner | Government of Vietnam |
Key people | Nguyễn Thanh Lâm (General Director) Đinh Đắc Vĩnh (Deputy General Director) Đỗ Thanh Hải (Deputy General Director) Đỗ Đức Hoàng (Deputy General Director) Lê Quyền (Deputy General Director) |
Launch date | September 7, 1970; 55 years ago (1970-09-07) |
Former names | Independent Television System Central Television |
Picture format | 1080iHDTV |
| Webcast | https://vtvgo.vn |
Official website | vtv |
| Language | Vietnamese |
| Subsidiary | VTV1 VTV2 VTV3 VTV4 Vietnam Today VTV5 VTV5 Tây Nam Bộ VTV5 Tây Nguyên VTV Cần Thơ VTV7 VTV8 VTV9 VTV Digital VFC VTV Sports TVAd VTV College VTVcab (98,55%) SCTV (50%) VSTV (46%) |
Vietnam Television (Vietnamese:Đài Truyền hình Việt Nam), officially branded asVTV, is thenational television broadcaster of Vietnam. As the state broadcaster under theGovernment of Vietnam, VTV is tasked with "propagating the views ofthe Party, policies, laws of the government, improve people's knowledge and serve the spiritual life of the people".[1]
VTV exists alongside theVoice of Vietnam and theVietnam News Agency as the official information agencies under direct administration of theGovernment of Vietnam.
VTV was established with technical assistance and training fromCuba on 7 September 1970,[2][3] inHanoi, as a department ofVoice of Vietnam. During theVietnam War it broadcast intermittently from a mountainous region.
Afterreunification in 1975, the former U.S.-run stations in the south became part of the national network, and broadcasting was extended to the entire country.
Color television was experimented in 1977 and adopted the FrenchSECAM standard and fully implemented in 1986.[4] Vietnam Television became an official name on 30 April 1987, and by 1990, VTV viewers had two national TV channels to choose from as VTV2 was launched and that year switched toPAL.[5][6]
VTV3 channels was broadcast on 31 March 1996, in 1998 the channel was broadcast via satellite to localities across the country. The remaining channels began to air in the following year, respectively.
VTV3 is the first channel to be broadcast HD since June 2013. The remaining channels be upgraded in turn to broadcast standard in the following year. In time to 2015 to 2022, all channel are broadcast under HD and SD signal in parallel.
VTV's regional broadcasting centres are located inHo Chi Minh City,Hue,Da Nang,Nha Trang, andCan Tho. Programming is relayed nationwide via a network of provincial and municipal television stations. There are transmitters in most outlying areas of the country. By 2003, more than 80% of all urban households owned a television set. The percentage was considerably less in rural areas, but even the most remote village cafe has a TV andvideo orDVD player.[citation needed]
From October 12, 2015 to June 26, 2020, VTV3 started programming dramas at 17:00 every day.
During January 1–7, 2020, VTV performed SD & HD channel sync testing for from VTV1 - VTV7 channels and January 10, 2020, for VTV9.
Between 19 March and 30 April 2020, as a safety precaution due to theCOVID-19 pandemic in the country, Vietnam Television temporarily suspended the overnight timeslot on most channels, with the exception of VTV1, VTV4 and VTV7, and limited the broadcast time to 19/7. The overnight timeslot returned to these channels as of 00:00 on May 1, 2020.
From May 10, 2020, Decree 34/2020/ND-CP officially takes effect. Accordingly, VTV merged and restructured the station's editing, production and broadcasting units and Vietnam Television Centers in the Central and Southern regions.
From July 30 to September 2, 2020, during the time of social distancing to prevent the COVID-19 epidemic in central provinces and cities, VTV8 continues to shorten the broadcast time to 19/7. From September 3, 2020, VTV8 has broadcast 24/7 again.
On December 31, 2020, the station stopped broadcasting terrestrial analogue television in the 15 provinces of group IV of the Terrestrial Television Digitization Scheme, completing the national television digitization.
From July 3, 2022 to March 8, 2024, VTV3 drama time slot at 18:00 was temporarily closed, replacing with various shows. Starting March 9, 2024, this time slot has returned after more than a year of absence.
On September 8, 2022, Decree No. 60/2022/ND-CP on the organization, tasks and powers of Vietnam Television was issued. Accordingly, the Youth Department is no longer part of the department system of Vietnam Television Station as from October 1, 2022. And renamed many department, at the same time, the Vietnam Television Center in the Southern region was split and re-established, which includes Vietnam Television Center in Ho Chi Minh City as well as Vietnam Television Center in the Southwest region. The Vietnam Television Center in the Southwest region is responsible for producing programs for VTV Can Tho and other VTV channels.
On October 10, 2022, VTV6 regional channel officially stopped broadcasting after 15 years, being replaced with VTV Can Tho, the national television channel of the Southwest region, later officially on October 13, 2022.
On November 1, 2022, VTV officially synchronized SD & HD streams for all channels.
On June 6, 2024, VTV3 ceased programming dramas at 11:20, which aired on weekdays.
On April 24, 2025, VTV1 ceased programming dramas at 13:00, replacing withSports. On May 4, 2025, VTV2 also ceased programming dramas to return broadcastingNews at 19:00.
On September 7, 2025, VTV announced a new national channel broadcast calledVietnam Today, an international channel serving English, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Japanese and Russian language, which ceased all foreign-speaking news onVTV4.
VTV currently runs the following channels:[7][8][9][10]
All the above channels are also available via satellite, digital terrestrial, and digital cable networks across Vietnam. Thru its cable television subsidiaryVTVcab and its participation in joint venturesSCTV andK+ VTV also partakes in the Vietnamese pay television market.
Changes to VTV regional channels were made on 1 January 2016.VTV Hue,VTV Da Nang, andVTV Phu Yen ceased programming and becameVTV8, a specific channel for Central and Highland Regions of Vietnam. Both theoldVTV9 andVTV Can Tho 1 merged to form thenewVTV9 for both southeast and southwest of Vietnam, whileVTV Can Tho 2 was renamedVTV5 Southwest, a bilingual Khmer-Vietnamese channel and the first regional variation of VTV5.[12] On 17 October 2016,VTV5 Central Highlands, a channel for ethnic minorities in Central Highlands of Vietnam and another regional variation of VTV5, was also launched.
VTV has its own film production company, the Vietnam Television Film Centre, orVFC, which producesmade-for-television movies andminiseries. Shows may also include foreignserial melodramas dubbed in Vietnamese, shown on VTV3.
Aside from news and current affairs programming, VTV1 devotes itself to orchestral concerts, ballets, traditional theatre, ethnic minority culture shows and films.
OnVietnamese New Year's Eve, VTV broadcasts a block of specialised programmes, a special edition of the 19:00 news bulletin, satirical theatrical comedyGặp nhau cuối năm, dedicated music shows, and a live broadcast of New Year's Eve celebrations across the country.
As of 2020, VTV has 17 bureaux with stationed staff and correspondents at:
Despite creating a strong influence among the Vietnamese public, VTV has also been involved in many controversies over political issues, piracy and the spread of false and one-sided information.
VTV4 has been criticized bySouth Vietnamese refugees and Vietnamese emigrants, due to the network supporting communist rule.[13][14] This controversy was initiated in 2003, when Australian public broadcasterSBS began to air news bulletins from VTV4 as a part ofWorldWatch, a block that transmits news programs from broadcasters across the world. VTV4's bulletin was quickly removed after the backlash. On the 2019 Lunar New Year edition of the cultural showVietnamese Beauties, VTV used the figure ofTran Le Xuan, the former South Vietnamese First Lady to illustrate Vietnameseao dai styles through the times. Two days later, on the variety show called12 Zodiacs, VTV unintentionally displayed a frame showing a member of theP336 band wearing a yellow jacket which resembled theSouth Vietnamese flag.
On 28 February 2016, VTV admitted that they had used copyrighted content without permission in some of its programs. Thus, VTV'sYouTube channel was terminated. The case was brought into attention after videographer Bui Minh Tuan claimed that VTV had repeatedly used his drone videos. He claimed that between 2015 and 2016, he had sent many complaints to VTV, the Department of Copyright and theVietnam Ministry of Information and Communications to report around 20 copyright infringements by VTV, to no avail. Tuan decided to report the case toGoogle.[15] In 2008, VTV lost its rights to broadcast theMiss World competition due to copyright issues. In 2016, it lost the broadcasting rights to the2015-16 UEFA Champions League season.[citation needed][16]
In May 2016, VTV was fined 50 millionVND by theMinistry of Information and Communications after publishing a reportage of farmers sweeping vegetables to pretend to be worms eating vegetables that considered to be "false".
On a reportage in the live business news Business Finance, first aired on the morning of August 17, 2020 on VTV1, one of the main anchors, Anh Quang had made a remark: "... street vendors, which are considered parasites living on the street..." This made the audience misunderstood the content that the editorial team want to convey while the whole reportage is a view of sharing and sympathy with the street vendors who are struggling to make a living duringCOVID-19 epidemic. On the same newscast two days later, the news anchor apologized to the audience for this serious error.
During the weekly segments of Motion News 24h first aired on July 31, 2021, on VTV1, the presenter Duong Son Lam caused a fierce controversy among netizens when comparing people's brains in violation of the epidemic prevention and control distance inCOVID-19 with reptilian and animal brain. In fact, some viewers quickly realized that the image of the human brain structure used in the show was the image of the Triune brain, which has been scientifically unrecognized since the 1980s. The spotlight reportage of this program is also sometimes controversial among Vietnamese netizens for its multi-dimensionality, objectivity and authenticity.
Since VTV restructured its personnel at the end of 2024, audiences have frequently complained about errors in the station's news reporting process. Most recently, in July 2025, while reporting on theThai-Cambodian border conflict, the station mistakenly reported the Thai-Cambodian border conflict as "Vietnam-Cambodia border conflict". The incident resulted in the station's evening news program crew being reprimanded by Prime MinisterPham Minh Chinh.
Sites such ashttps://vtvgo.vn/ show online live broadcasts of VTV channels. TheVTV Go app is also available onsmart TV devices and smartphones.
| Year | Award ceremony | Category | Nominee / Work | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Asiavision Annual Awards | Outstanding Reporting on Climate Change and Adaptation | VTV | Won | [17] |
| Outstanding Reporting of a News Story | VTV | Won | |||
| 2021 | Coverage of the Year | VTV | Won | [18] | |
| 2025 | Asiavision Awards | Best Disaster Coverage | Won | [19] |
Owned by theGovernment of Vietnam | |
| Domestic | |
| International | |
| Defunct | |
| Ministries |  | |
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| Ministry-level agencies | ||
| Government-dependent agencies | ||
| International | |
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| National | |
