Television in Israel

Upon its establishment in May 1948, Israel had one radio station, run directly by the government, which was a continuation of the British Mandate's Hebrew radio station. The first governments, headed by David Ben-Gurion, did not favor the establishment of TV stations. Nevertheless, the Israeli government discussed the idea of using television as an instructional and educational tool in 1952 and 1955. In 1961 the Israeli government asked UNESCO to offer its opinion, which was in favor of using television for educational purposes.[2] In the early 1960s, television broadcasts from neighboring Egypt, Lebanon, and Cyprus gradually became available to Israelis through TV sets which were placed in public places, like cafés. Since they were mainly in Arabic, these broadcasts were popular among Israeli Arabs. This raised the government's concern about anti-Israel propaganda that might be included in them.[2]

When Levi Eshkol assumed power as prime minister in June 1963, he started to promote the establishment of an Israeli TV channel. In 1964, he invited a team of experts from the European Broadcasting Union to submit their recommendations. In 1965, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority was established in order to distance the government from the everyday management and editorial decisions of the state-owned radio station. The government also passed a resolution stating that this new body will start TV broadcasts within two years.[2]

Former Israeli Television Building in Romema, Jerusalem, which used to be the main building for Israel's Channel 1 until 10 May 2017

Television in Israel was finally introduced on 24 March 1966, though not by the IBA, but rather by the Israeli Educational Television, which was funded by the Rothschild Foundation and acted as part of the Ministry of Education. The first transmissions were lessons to school students in various subjects, filmed in black and white,[3] and intended to be received by 32 schools across the country.[4] The Israeli Broadcasting Authority launched regular public transmissions on 2 May 1968, on the occasion of Israeli Independence Day.

Israeli television began operations when American and European stations were switching to full-scale colour transmissions, but Israel's state-controlled stations broadcast only in black and white. According to Arnon Zuckerman, head of IBA's television department from 1973 to March 1979, Israeli prime minister Golda Meir described colour television as "artificial" and unnecessary.[5] Yair Lapid, son of Tommy Lapid, the IBA director general from April 1979 to March 1984, claimed the IBA had the equipment for filming and broadcasting in colour for nearly a decade before putting it into use, and the introduction of colour transmissions was halted due to political pressure.[6]

Newscasts and other regular productions were filmed using black and white cameras. However many special productions ordered from private Israeli studios (in particular Herzliya Studios) were filmed and taped in colour. Furthermore, Israeli television bought the rights to many American and British TV series and movies (broadcast with Hebrew-Arabic subtitles). The result was a mixture of colour and black and white broadcasts, which encouraged traders to import colour TV sets, especially as TV stations in neighbouring Jordan and Egypt started colour transmissions in 1974.

The Israeli government considered the import of color televisions as a frivolous luxury that would increase social gaps. Therefore, the government ordered IBA and IETV to erase the colour from colour-taped telecasts by erasing the "burst phase" signal. The "damaged" signal triggered the "colour killer" mechanism, installed in colour TV sets to prevent the appearance of incidental colour spots on the screen when black-and-white films are broadcast or when the reception is disturbed. This method was named mekhikon (Hebrew: מחיקון‎ "eraser"), and soon after its introduction, special TV sets with an anti-mekhikon (Hebrew: אנטי-מחיקון‎ "anti-eraser") device were offered. This device reinstalled the burst phase signal according to several known standards. The client had to turn a switch until the pictures on the screen appeared in natural colours. According to a report in Yediot Aharonoth from January 1979[7] clients had to manipulate the switch every 15 minutes on average in normal conditions, or up to 10 times an hour when special problems occurred, in order to restore natural colours or if the picture suddenly turned black and white.

Based on information from owners of electric appliance stores, the report estimated that 90% of those who bought colour TV sets also bought the anti-mekhikon device, whose price ranged between 2,500 and 4,000 Israeli lirot (the TV set itself cost 40-50 thousand lirot).[8]

The Israeli government allowed colour transmissions by the IBA in November 1977 when IBA provided live color coverage of the historical visit of the Egyptian president, Anwar El Sadat, to Israel.[9][10] This transmission was sent via satellite to stations around the world. In March 1979 the IBA hosted the annual Eurovision Song Contest, and once again sent the transmission live in colour to stations around the world.[11]

Public pressure on the issue of colour transmissions mounted, and in 1981 IBA and IETV were allowed to film their own regular productions in colour. This process took more than two years and reached the last stretch on 16 February 1983 when the main daily newscast was broadcast in colour for the first time.[12] According to Lapid's book, this first colour newscast was prepared secretly by some "enthusiastic workers" of IBA, in order to avoid industrial actions by the technicians' trade union, who demanded higher salaries for operating colour equipment. Lapid also mentions that the anti-mekhikon system cost IBA 180 million Israeli lira yearly (approximately 64 million Israeli new shekels in 2011 prices). The IBA stopped filming in black and white on 10 May 1983.

Eretz Nehederet studio

In 1978 the Israeli government appointed a special committee to explore the establishment of a second channel that would not be under the IBA supervision and would be financed by advertising, however the idea of commercial television was rejected by some parties in the ruling coalition. On 7 October 1986, Prof. Amnon Rubinstein, the then Israeli Minister of Communications ordered the beginning of "experimental transmissions" on a second channel, claiming that unless these transmissions had started, the frequencies would have been used by TV networks in neighbouring countries.[13] First transmissions were aired on UHF channel 21 from Mount Eitanim transmission tower situated on the hills west of Jerusalem. These transmissions, which initially included 2–3 hours of video clips every evening and broadcast from a private TV studio in Jerusalem, expanded gradually to include a full program lineup. At this stage the IBA was legally responsible for the channel, but in fact it saw it as an unexpected competition, tried to prevent its inauguration, and was reluctant to take responsibility for its broadcasts. In 1986 the Knesset started discussing the law forming the Second Israeli Broadcasting Authority, which was finally approved in 1990. This new body took responsibility for the second channel from this year onwards. From 1990 to 1993 the Second Broadcasting Authority reviewed bids from commercial companies to establish the regular commercial broadcasts of the second channel, which started on 4 November 1993. The second channel was officially handed to three concessionaires, starting the first commercial broadcasts in Israel, with IETV as the fourth broadcaster which was entitled, by law, for additional hours on this channel as a commercial entity.

Pirated television broadcasts via cables became very popular in the major cities of Israel during the late 80s. These were usually local cable television stations broadcasting illegally from private houses to subscribers, mainly films released on video tapes. These local stations vanished with the introduction of regulated cable television in 1989. By mid-1994, some 720,000 Israeli households were hooked up to cable television.[13]

Satellite television was introduced to Israel in 2000.

In August 2009, Israel launched digital terrestrial broadcasts with the intention to phase out the analogue broadcast. Israel shut down analogue television services on 13 June 2011; the first nation in the Middle East to abandon analogue over-the-air broadcasting. In the early stage there was only single mux broadcast in SFN with five channels and later on a sixth TV channel was added and also a selection of public and regional radio stations. By mid-2017 an additional mux was introduced with five new TV channels in DVB-T2 standard, including IPBC's Hebrew channel "Kan 11" channel in HD.[15]