The managing director of the company, Ibrahim Khaleel said DhiTV's test signal had begun on Friday [16 May] and could be seen by MediaNet and B-Net cable subscribers, Channel 50 and 3 respectively.
"The test signal is being sent to check the audiovisual quality and to confirm other technical stuff," he said. "Occasionally you might see someone speaking live on the channel, that's just for testing though." He added that they might occasionally show songs on the channel also for testing purposes.
Khaleel said that although the test signal had begun transmitting it was still not confirmed when the official launching of the service will be. He said that once the test signal had served its purpose and they had managed to gather all the information they required from it, an official launch date would be announced.
The Maldives Broadcasting Company has said that DhiTV will show news, current affairs programmes, sports, entertainment shows and programmes aimed towards creating awareness about different issues, and programmes aimed specifically for the youth.
"Our programmes will be aimed towards all age denominations and both genders," said Khaleel, who is also a senior official at the DhiFM radio channel.
The company also said that even though currently they were providing the service via cable TV networks, in the future they planned to broadcast via satellite too.
"We are finishing up the technical aspects of the project," Khaleel said. "Everything from stage designing, equipment installation, testing are all being done by Maldivians."
The Maldives Broadcasting Company was licensed to broadcast by the Information Ministry in December last year. They began sending their test TV signal five months after. The Information Ministry has also issued broadcasting licences to Villa TV and Atoll TV.
Courtesy: Haveeru
