Myanmar International Television is a Burmese state-owned

State media

State media or state-owned media is media for mass communication which is ultimately controlled and/or funded by the state. These news outlets may be the sole media outlet or may exist in competition with privately-controlled media.-Overview:...

 national and international English-language television channel based in Yangon

Yangon

Yangon is a former capital of Burma and the capital of Yangon Region . Although the military government has officially relocated the capital to Naypyidaw since March 2006, Yangon, with a population of over four million, continues to be the country's largest city and the most important commercial...

, Myanmar

Myanmar

Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....

. The channel was first launched in August 2001 as MRTV-3, the third ever television channel in Myanmar. It was rebranded as Myanmar International Television in April 2010.

Overview

The channel was first launched on 1 August 2001 was financed with a $1 million grant from Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 and is broadcast on the Shin Corp Thaicom 3

Shin Satellite

THAICOM Public Company Limited, was formerly known as Shin Satellite Plc , is Thailand's first satellite operator. It is a subsidiary of Shin Corporation, the biggest telecommunications conglomerate in Thailand...

 satellite. It is the third channel to be launched in Myanmar, after the main MRTV channel (1980) and Myawaddy TV

Myawaddy TV

Myawaddy is a Myanmar military-owned television network based in Yangon, Myanmar. It was launched on the 27 March 1995, in commemoration of the Burmese Armed Forces Day. Its programming is also broadcast over the AsiaSat 2 satellite. The average duration of broadcast is approximately eight hours...

 (1995). The state-owned channel was viewable in 156 countries, broadcasting 17 hours a day in Myanmar and 8 hours a day in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and America, with coverage increasing to 24 hours a day worldwide on the occasion of the rebranding to Myanmar International.

The service is one of several television channels freely available in Myanmar.

According to Ye Tun, assistant manager of Myanmar International, the purposes of the channel are threefold: "to inform, to educate and to entertain the public and broadcast healthy programs". However, the channel has been criticised for broadcasting propaganda

Propaganda

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

 for the junta. A government official said the channel was launched to provide an "objective response" to international media reports about Burma.

A web-based video streaming

Streaming media

Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...

 system was launched in November 2002, and an online newspaper

Online newspaper

An online newspaper, also known as a web newspaper, is a newspaper that exists on the World Wide Web or Internet, either separately or as an online version of a printed periodical....

 in March 2003. The channel has news exchange agreements with CCTV

China Central Television

China Central Television or Chinese Central Television, commonly abbreviated as CCTV, is the major state television broadcaster in mainland China. CCTV has a network of 19 channels broadcasting different programmes and is accessible to more than one billion viewers...

, NHK

NHK

NHK is Japan's national public broadcasting organization. NHK, which has always identified itself to its audiences by the English pronunciation of its initials, is a publicly owned corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee....

, Airang TV and CFI.

Programming

News programmes regularly feature army and political leaders, while entertainment programmes feature ethnic groups singing songs of national unity. Myanmar Mosaic features cookery, cultural and tourism programmes about Burma.

During the 2007 Burmese anti-government protests

2007 Burmese anti-government protests

The 2007 Burmese anti-government protests were a series of anti-government protests that started in Burma on 15 August 2007...

, the channel criticised Western media outlets for "fabricating stories" about the incident, describing them as "not happy with peace, stability and development of the [Burmese] nation." A news programme broadcast slides reading "VOA

Voice of America

Voice of America is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. It is one of five civilian U.S. international broadcasters working under the umbrella of the Broadcasting Board of Governors . VOA provides a wide range of programming for broadcast on radio...

 and BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

, sky full of liars. Beware of destructionists, BBC and VOA." The channel reported on the protests after several days.