Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation

• Ραδιοφωνικό Ίδρυμα Κύπρου (Greek)
• Kıbrıs Radyo Yayın Kurumu (Turkish)

Type	Broadcast radio and television
Country	Cyprus
Availability	Europe, North America and Australia
Owner	Republic of Cyprus
Key people	Michalis P. Michael, Chairman Thanasis Tsokos, Director General
Launch date	4 October 1953 (4 October 1953) (radio) 1 October 1957 (1 October 1957) (television)
Former names	Cyprus Broadcasting Service (1953–1959)
Official website	cybc.com.cy

Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (Greek: Ραδιοφωνικό Ίδρυμα Κύπρου, romanized: Radiofonikó Ídryma Kýprou; Turkish: Kıbrıs Radyo Yayın Kurumu), or CyBC (Greek: ΡΙΚ, romanized: RIK; Turkish: KRYK), is Cyprus' public broadcasting service. It transmits island-wide on four radio and two domestic television channels, and uses one satellite channel for the Cypriot diaspora. It also transmits on a separate high definition channel.

CyBC is a nonprofit organization, using its entire income for its mission to provide objective information news, culture and entertainment to the people of Cyprus.

CyBC was partially funded by a tax on electric bills, a practice which ended on 1 July 2000;^[1] CyBC is currently funded by the state budget. The amount of the tax was dependent on the size of the home and, as a hypothecated tax for public television, was similar in principle to the television licence systems in other countries. The corporation is a member of the international broadcasting community, belonging to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the Broadcasting Organisation of Non-Aligned Countries (BONAC) and the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association (CBA).

History and legal framework

CyBC began as the Cyprus Broadcasting Service, with its first radio broadcast at 17:00 on Sunday, 4 October 1953. Programmes were broadcast in Greek, Turkish and English on 434 and 495 metres medium wave (691 and 606 kilohertz). The station produced a free weekly publication, Radio Cyprus.^[2]

Television broadcasting began on 1 October 1957. Broadcasts were initially five days a week, averaging three hours a day, and the service covered a radius of 33 kilometres from Nicosia.

On 1 January 1959, the CBS ceased to be a government department and was renamed the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation under Chapter 300A of the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation Act. The corporation was modelled in part on the British Broadcasting Corporation.^[3] CyBC was admitted as an associate member of the European Broadcasting Union on 1 January 1964, becoming an active member five years later.

As the state broadcaster, CBC is responsible for implementing the Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus. According to Article 171 of the constitution:

In sound and vision broadcasting there shall be programmes both for the Greek and the Turkish Communities. The time allocated to programmes for the Turkish Cypriot Community in sound broadcasting shall not be less than 75 hours in a seven-day week, spread to all days of such week in daily normal periods of transmission: Provided that if the total period of transmissions has to be reduced so that the time allotted to programs for the Greek Community should fall below 75 hours in a seven-day week, then the time allotted to programmes for the Turkish Community in any such week should be reduced by the same number of hours as that by which the time allotted to programmes for the Greek Community is reduced below such hours: Provided further that if the time allotted to programmes for the Greek Community is increased above 140 hours in a 7-day week, then the time allotted to programmes for the Turkish Community shall be increased in the ratio of 3 hours for the Turkish Community to every 7 hours for the Greek Community.

In vision broadcasting there shall be allotted three transmission days to the programmes for the Turkish Community of every ten consecutive transmission days and the total time allotted to the programmes for the Turkish Community in such ten transmission days shall be in the ratio of three hours to seven hours allotted to programmes for the Greek-Hellenic Community in such ten transmission days.

All official broadcasts in sound and vision shall be made both in Greek and Turkish and shall not be taken into account for the purposes of calculating the time under this Article.

Article 19 of the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation Act (Chapter 300A) states:

The Corporation (CyBC) shall conduct the broadcasting services with impartial attention to the interests and susceptibilities of the different communities and with due regard to the interests of minority communities in the Republic. The Corporation shall operate the broadcasting services in the Greek, Turkish and English languages and any other languages at its discretion and shall at all times keep a fair balance in the allocation of broadcasting hours and other matters between these languages.

Television

RIK TV logo (2008–2015)

CyBC operates three domestic channels (CyBC 1, CyBC 2 and CyBC HD) and an international service (RIK Sat) for the Cypriot diaspora. It also carries Euronews, and ERT World. On 1 July 2011 all analogue television transmissions ended, and CyBC broadcasts on its own DVB-T network.

RIK Sat

RIK Sat logo

RIK Sat is the international service of RIK TV, broadcasting to Europe and North America. It is currently available as a free-to-air service in Europe on the Hellas Sat 2 and Eutelsat 33E satellites and as a digital terrestrial television channel in Greece.

In North America, Titan Television is the distributor for Canada and the United States.^[4] On 23 September 2014, the channel debuted in Canada on Bell Fibe TV.

Radio

CyBC has four radio channels (First, Second, Third and Fourth), which aim to transmit quality programs and provide information, culture and entertainment to all communities in Cyprus. Programs are broadcast in a number of languages 24 hours a day and are also available via satellite and on the Internet.

Logos

• 
  2000–2015
• 
  2015–2017
• 
  2017–present

See also

• Television in Cyprus
• Hellenic TV (this channel on Channelbox^[5] broadcasts a number of programmes from RIK Sat in the UK)

References

External links

Media related to Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation at Wikimedia Commons

• Official website (in Greek, English, and Turkish)