Kringvarp Føroya (KvF) (

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

: ''Broadcasting Service of the Faroe Islands'') is the national

public broadcasting Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...

company of the

Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands ( ), or simply the Faroes ( fo, Føroyar ; da, Færøerne ), are a North Atlantic island group and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. They are located north-northwest of Scotland, and about halfway bet ...

. It was founded on 1 January 2005 after a merger of the national radio and television networks, Útvarp Føroya and Sjónvarp Føroya.

History

Útvarp Føroya

Útvarp Føroya (ÚF) (English: ''Radio of the Faroe Islands'') was founded in 1957, under the station's first director Axel Tórgarð. Niels Juel Arge took over the position in 1960 and remained until 1990. Prior to the establishment of Útvarp Føroya, the

Faroese people Faroese people or Faroe Islanders ( fo, føroyingar; da, færinger) are a North Germanic peoples, North Germanic ethnic group and nation Ethnic groups in Europe, native to the Faroe Islands. The Faroese are of Norse–Gaels, mixed Norsemen, Nors ...

could only listen to foreign radio stations. These included the National Norwegian Radio Station, often referred to as ''Norðmaðurin'' ("The Norwegian" or "The man from Norway"), and the

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the British Government through the Foreign Secretary's office. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception a ...

. These stations were mainly used for daily weather forecasts.

Sjónvarp Føroya

Sjónvarp Føroya (SvF) (English: ''Television of the Faroe Islands'') was founded in 1984. It was the only public TV station in the country, and broadcast some content in Faroese. The history of SvF goes back to the 1960s. In 1969, the Faroese parliament (

Løgting The Løgting (pronounced ; da, Lagtinget) is the unicameral parliament of the Faroe Islands, an autonomous territory within the Danish Realm. The name literally means "''Law Thing''"—that is, a law assembly—and derives from Old Norse ...

) decided to create an organisation for developing TV facilities on the islands under public law. A 1978 law set into motion the establishment of the network, which was founded as ''Sjónvarp Føroya'' in 1981. A furniture store in the capital

Tórshavn Tórshavn (; lit. " Thor's harbour"), usually locally referred to as simply ''Havn'', is the capital and largest city of the Faroe Islands. It is located in the southern part on the east coast of Streymoy. To the northwest of the city lies the ...

was converted into a TV studio in 1983. On 1 April 1984 the first Faroese programme was launched; however, private local TV associations had been transmitting for six years. The regular operation of SVF started on 1 September of that same year. In spring 1985, the former freelancers of Faroese TV were engaged as staff by the Faroese government. Since 1990, other nearby buildings have been bought in order to enhance the network's premises. In December 2002, the Faroe Islands became the first country in the world to completely disconnect of its analogue television signals, which had used the

PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...

standard, in favour of the digital

DVB-T DVB-T, short for Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial, is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in Singapore in Feb ...

standard. By law, SvF had a goal of broadcasting one-third of its programmes in Faroese. Other programmes were mostly taken from

Danmarks Radio DR (), officially the Danish Broadcasting Corporation in English, is a Danish public-service radio and television broadcasting company. Founded in 1925 as a public-service organization, it is Denmark's oldest and largest electronic media enter ...

(DR) and were subtitled, with Danish audio. In 2003, 27 percent of the SvF's programmes were in Faroese. Apart from children's programmes, SVF's own production consisted mainly of news and topical magazine items.

Kringvarp Føroya

In 2005, the SvF and ÚF were merged into a new company, Kringvarp Føroya, which is funded by a combination of

television licence A television licence or broadcast receiving licence is a payment required in many countries for the reception of television broadcasts, or the possession of a television set where some broadcasts are funded in full or in part by the licence ...

fees,

commercials A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...

, and a bingo (called Gekkurin, or "the Joker"). The television section of the Kringvarp Føroya shows only one channel, with some programming coming from DR and TV 2 (

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

). It also produces its own content, including Faroese news, which is called ''Dagur og Vika'' (Day and Week); children's TV; and some cultural and sports broadcasting. Additional stations are available from Televarpið, the only local pay-TV provider, which is a digital terrestrial service. Satellite TV from foreign providers is also popular.

References

External links