Rupesh Shrestha

When it was established, in July 2003, Kantipur Television was one of Nepal’s first privately owned television channels to offer a wide range of content broadcast via terrestrial stations and satellites. With its more than two decades of operation, Kantipur Television has become synonymous with quality transmission and quality content. KTV initially started off with a seven–hour regional broadcast for the Kathmandu Valley, and quickly became one of Nepal’s leading and most popular TV channels. Its programmes provide in-depth analyses of current issues and reflect people’s interests. It also explores the multidimensional impacts of important events, by framing them in formats that range from news bulletins, interviews and features to satires, comedies and social drama. Kantipur TV reflects back to viewers the many colors their lives are permeated with, and its celebrated hosts continue to draw new viewers. Kantipur Television is so trusted that whenever upheavals, transitions and changes in our society happen, people tune into its broadcast to orient themselves. During the second democratic movement and countless other periods of change, KTV has never gone off air. Even in the immediate aftermath of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake in 2015, and even as the following aftershocks continued to shake Nepal, Kantipur Television was on air, uninterrupted—broadcasting the news from makeshift roadside studios, providing people with information that assuage their fears and made use of to remain safe.