TV channels Malta

Maltese television is small in size and unusually political in structure. The island's screens are divided between the public broadcaster and the two dominant parties' own stations - a split with few parallels in Europe, and one that still shapes how Malta watches the news.

The Public Pair

TVM carries a unique heritage: it continues Malta's first television service, launched on 29 September 1962, and today operates as the national channel of Public Broadcasting Services from Gwardamanġa in Pietà. Broadcasting mainly in Maltese with English as the secondary language, it mixes news, sport, drama, entertainment and children's programming with the island's major national events. Its sister TVMnews+ - TVM 2 - is the PBS channel with a specific focus on news and educational content, carrying news bulletins and learning programming.

The Party Newsrooms

Malta is one of the few countries where the two dominant political parties run their own television stations. ONE News Malta is the news face of ONE Television, owned by One Productions - the media arm of the Labour Party - on air since March 1994. On the other side, NETnews is the news service of NET, Malta's pioneering private channel affiliated with the Nationalist Party, which has covered the island's politics and society for decades. Between the public broadcaster and the two party newsrooms, Maltese viewers get a complete, if characteristically polarized, picture of the day's events.