Initiation and launch NTV was originally licensed to Sajjat Ali on 19 September 1999. The channel was originally licensed as "Ten TV" prior to its acquisition by Mosaddek Ali on 10 January 2003. Exactly a month later, on 10 February 2003, NTV was announced to set operations in April of that year, as Bangladesh's previous privately owned television channel,
Ekushey Television was shut down in 2002. It had also announced a partnership with
CNN. Ahead of launch, it had become the first Bangladeshi channel to use real-time graphics per an agreement signed with Beehive Systems to provide the isle'wiz software. However, its official broadcasts started on 3 July 2003. Prior to this, it initiated test transmissions for a week. The launch night special and the channel's graphics were compared to Ekushey Television by a Daily Star columnist; moreover, the director of the opening ceremony of the channel,
Hanif Sanket, had done the same for ETV three years earlier. NTV began broadcasting on a full-day basis on 1 January 2004, enabling the channel to start airing more news bulletins. NTV had received investment from Soundview Broadcasting owned by Shafqat Chowdhury, a Pakistani-American businessman.
Later years On 26 February 2007, a massive fire took place at the BSEC building in Karwan Bazar, killing three people and injuring over a hundred. As a result, both NTV and its sister,
RTV, temporarily ceased operations and forced the channel to broadcast reruns after resuming broadcasts. They worked with
Banglavision to broadcast their news onto NTV since they were unable to do their own. In September 2011, NTV became the first television channel in Bangladesh to receive an ISO certificate for its contribution to its broadcast management. Mike Bloise handed it to the channel's chairman, Falu. In December 2012, the
Intelligence Bureau of India flagged NTV as a "hate channel" allegedly broadcasting anti-India programming. It was one of the twenty-four "illegal" channels to have been flagged. On 31 October 2014, another fire broke out in the BSEC building at 11:48 in the morning, which once again led to the closure of both NTV and RTV. NTV resumed transmissions later on that day. In 2016, Falu resigned from the
Bangladesh Nationalist Party as vice chairman. NTV was one of the nine Bangladeshi television channels to sign an agreement with
Bdnews24.com to subscribe to a video-based news agency run by children called
Prism in May 2016. NTV aired the
Miss World Bangladesh pageant in 2017. In December 2018, NTV began broadcasting using the
Bangabandhu-1 satellite. On 26 February 2019, the second anime series of
Chibi Maruko-chan, dubbed in Bengali, premiered on NTV. NTV commenced official
high-definition broadcasts on 21 February 2025, coinciding
International Mother Language Day. == Related services ==