Sjónvarp Føroya (SvF) means "Television of the Faroe Islands". It is the only public TV station in the small country of 48,000 inhabitants, speaking their own Faroese language.
The history of SvF goes back to the 1960s. In 1969, the Faroese parliament (Løgting) decided to found a stock for developing TV facilities on the islands under public law. The law of 1978 arranged the realisation of the network, which was finally founded as Sjónvarp Føroya in 1981. An old furniture store in the capital Tórshavn was converted into a TV studio in 1983, and on April 1, 1984 the first Faroese programme was launched; however, private local TV associations had by then been transmitting for six years. The regular operation of SVF started on September 1 the same year.
In spring 1985, the former freelancers of Faroese TV were engaged as staff by the Faroese government. Since 1990, other buildings in the neighbourhood were bought in order to enhance the network's premises.
By Faroese law, SvF has the goal of broadcasting one-third of its programmes in the Faroese language. The other programmes are mostly taken from Danmarks Radio and are Danish subtitled movies. In 2003, 27 percent of the SvF's programmes were in Faroese. Apart from children's programmes SVF's own production consists mainly of news and topical magazine items.
SvF funds itself from a combination of television licence fees, commercials, and bingo. [1][2]
In 2005, the companies Sjónvarp Føroya and Útvarp Føroya (Radio of the Faroes) were merged into the new company, Kringvarp Føroya.
The station still signs off to a test card, as do others in Europe including Telewizja Polska, SVT2 and RUV. SvF currently signs off around midnight to 1am, and signs on around 4-5 pm.
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