DWGT-TV

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This article is about the flagship station of National Broadcasting Network (NBN) in Metro Manila

DWGT-TV

Metro Manila
Branding	NBN-4 Manila
Channels	4 (VHF) analog
Translators	D8ZM 8 Baguio City
Affiliations	National Broadcasting Network
Owner	People's Television Network, Inc.
Founded	1974
Call letters meaning	DW Government Television
Former callsigns	DZXL-TV (1969-1972)
Former affiliations	ABS-CBN (1969-1972)
Transmitter Power	968 kilowatts
Website	www.nbn.gov.ph

DWGT-TV, channel 4, is the flagship station of Philippine television network National Broadcasting Network. Its studios and transmitter are located at Broadcast Complex, Visayas Avenue, Diliman, Quezon City.

1 History
2 Its Sports Programming Record
3 References
4 See also

[edit] History

The frequency rights of Channel 4 were previously owned by one of the ABS-CBN stations in Metro Manila (DZXL-TV 9) when the station moved from channel 9 to channel 4 in 1969.

During the Martial Law era, the government seized the frequency of channel 4 of ABS-CBN, reopened it in October 1973 as Government Television (GTV) channel 4. By 1980, GTV became MBS (Maharlika Broadcasting System), a full-blown media machinery for former president Ferdinand E. Marcos.

On February 24, 1986, during a live news conference in Malacañang, rebel forces tried to capture channel 4 and eventually succeeded. At the heat of exchanges between Marcos and then Chief of Staff General Fabian Ver, channel 4 suddenly went off the air when its facilities were taken over by rebel forces and by that afternoon started broadcasting for the people.

During the Aquino administration, it became known as People's Television 4. The years following its broadcast, PTV's facilities, then housed on a major part of ABS-CBN's present studio complex in Bohol Ave. (now Sgt. Esguerra Ave) Quezon City, became a subject of a legal battle between the Lopezes and the Government.

To end the scuffle, the Aquino government, through the Bureau of Broadcast Services, which then newly revived the pre-Martial Law era Philippine Broadcasting Service, decided to expand the former National Media Production Center building in Visayas Ave. to eventually accommodate Channel 4. By 1993, the station moved its studios to the said complex with transmitters and other equipment largely donated from a grant of the French government.

In 2001, People's Television was renamed on-screen as National Broadcasting Network. By that time it introduced the country's first two hour newscast Teledyaryo, and adopted mostly programs that showcase the good side of the Arroyo administration and its programs.

[edit] Its Sports Programming Record

As a government TV station, NBN is mandated to broadcast to the Filipino people major international sporting competitions wherein the interests of the Filipino athlete are at stake.

The station effectively took over from RPN 9 the rights to cover the Olympic Games starting with the 1988 Seoul Olympiad, with a brief hiatus in 1992 when ABS-CBN snatched from them the right to broadcast the Barcelona Olympiad because of their experiment in marketing then newly-launched Sky Cable. By 1996, it resumed the official responsibility of broadcasting the prestigious quadrennial event.

NBN (as PTV before) often got into trouble with cable operators as alternate feeds of the Games became attractive to local Filipinos that have cable as a result of the station's sloppy treatment of the coverages. Nonetheless, it had succeeded in prosecuting some cable operators that violated such rights.

The station, together with another government-controlled TV network, Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation acquired the broadcast rights of PBA games in 2003.

Today, besides the Olympics, NBN still carries other major sporting events including the Asian Games and the SEA Games, despite not having enough income to buy the rights to these events. Its biggest competitor right now in the sports television arena is Solar Entertainment Corporation.