About Nusantara TV

Nusantara TV

Nusantara TV, commonly shortened to NTV, is an Indonesian private digital television network owned by NT Corp and operated by PT Nusantara Media Mandiri. It launched on 10 November 2015, broadcasts nationally in Indonesian, and carries the slogan Sahabat Kita, meaning Our Friend. The network began as a general service mixing news and entertainment and, from early 2024, was deliberately repositioned with a stronger focus on news, current affairs and talk. Its official website is nusantaratv.com, with news published through its ntvnews.id service, and its programmes are available free to air on digital terrestrial television, by free-to-air satellite, and through live streaming.

Foundation Under NT Corp

Nusantara TV is a business unit of NT Corp, the group led by Nurdin Tampubolon. The founder of the station is recorded as Nurdin Tampubolon himself, and members of the Tampubolon family have continued to hold leading positions in the company. PT Nusantara Media Mandiri, the operating company, is classified as a private broadcasting institution, or Lembaga Penyiaran Swasta, providing a non-government television service with national reach. The Nusantara TV name and logo received trademark certification from the Ministry of Law and Human Rights under Indonesia's trademark law, with the current mark registered on 14 October 2019 under registration number IDM000806608.

The station obtained its broadcasting permission in 2014 and began official broadcasts on 10 November 2015. Its head office is NT Tower on Jalan Pulomas Selatan in Kayu Putih, Pulo Gadung, East Jakarta. That Pulomas base is reflected in its own programme naming, including the programme strand DPO, short for Dari Pulomas, meaning From Pulomas. Although the network is Jakarta-based operationally, its identity is national by design: the name Nusantara refers to the Indonesian archipelago, and its news branding, programme titles and network of regional companies all present the service as one speaking to and from the whole country rather than the capital alone.

A Pioneer of Digital Broadcasting in Indonesia

Nusantara TV's most frequently cited distinction is its early commitment to digital television. Academic study of the station describes it as a pioneer of digital broadcasting in Indonesia, pointing to its use of the digital trial opportunity on 28 June 2016, when it began terrestrial digital broadcasts across Indonesia, years before the national analogue switch-off was completed. At a time when the established national networks were still operating primarily as analogue services with digital migration repeatedly delayed, Nusantara TV built its identity around being digital from the start.

That early digital position was both an opportunity and a hardship. Digital-only reach in the late 2010s meant a smaller immediately available audience than the analogue giants enjoyed, because many households had not yet acquired digital receivers or set-top boxes. Contemporary accounts of the station's first eight years describe a mixed, general schedule and a difficult period while the national migration to digital television remained stalled. Nusantara TV nevertheless kept broadcasting through that period, including through the COVID-19 pandemic years, when advertising pressure forced some Indonesian stations to cut back or close. Its survival through the delayed switchover, followed by the completion of national digital migration, finally placed its digital-first model on the same technical footing as its older rivals.

Licensing and Multiplex Success

Nusantara TV received its permanent broadcasting licence, the Izin Penyelenggaraan Penyiaran Tetap or IPP Tetap, from the Indonesian government in 2019, strengthening its formal position in the national broadcasting system. References to the licence cite Minister of Communication and Informatics Decision Number 463/T.02.02/2019. A permanent licence matters in Indonesian broadcasting because it confirms a station's long-term right to operate beyond trial and temporary permissions, and it underpins investment in transmitters, studios and programme production.

The network also competed successfully for digital infrastructure in its own right. On 26 April 2021, Nusantara TV won the digital multiplexing selection for the Bandar Lampung and Bali service areas, giving it a role not only as a programme service carried on other operators' multiplexes but also as a multiplex operator in those regions. Elsewhere, its regional services are carried through a variety of multiplex arrangements, including Trans TV, TVRI and Metro TV multiplexes depending on the area. Its listed broadcast network spans Jakarta and its surrounding cities, Bali, Lampung, Medan, Yogyakarta and Surakarta, Bandung, Batam, Surabaya and other East Java cities, Semarang and other Central Java services, Banjarmasin, Balikpapan and Makassar, among others, reflecting a genuinely multi-island footprint.

The 2024 Repositioning Toward News

At the start of 2024, after roughly eight years as a mixed general channel, NT Corp changed Nusantara TV's strategy and repositioned it as a news-focused service. Senior journalist Don Bosco Selamun and Nunung Setiyani were brought in as the new leadership to signal the seriousness of that change. Don Bosco Selamun subsequently served as president director of Nusantara TV from 2024, with Randy Monthonaro Tampubolon, who had led the company from 2015 to 2024, later returning to the president director role. Nurdin Tampubolon serves as president commissioner, and Abraham Silaban, a former tvOne, iNews and Sindonews TV broadcaster, serves as editor-in-chief while also appearing as a presenter.

The repositioning did not turn Nusantara TV into a rolling-news channel of the Metro TV or tvOne type overnight, and its schedule retains lifestyle, music, religious and entertainment elements. What changed was the centre of gravity. News bulletins under the NTV News family, talk and current-affairs programmes, business coverage and interview formats were placed at the heart of the schedule and of the station's public identity, while its website developed into a full online news service in its own right. For viewers, the practical effect is that Nusantara TV is now best understood as a news-led general network rather than the entertainment-led general network it had been in its first years.

News and Current Affairs Programming

The core of the present schedule is the NTV News family, which includes NTV Morning, NTV Today, NTV Prime, NTV Tonight, NTV Updates, NTV Headlines, NTV Toplines, NTV Highlights, NTV Crime and NTV Sports editions, supported by Breaking News coverage when events require it. Around those bulletins sits a wide current-affairs slate. Programmes listed for the network include Abraham, the interview and discussion programme fronted by its editor-in-chief, Asta Cita 08, Checkpoint, Crime Files, Dari Meja Redaksi, meaning From the Editorial Desk, Gestur, Kasipaham, Merah Putih, Morning Spotlight, NTV Interview, Suara Nusantara, meaning Voice of the Archipelago, and Sport Arena and NTV Sport Cast for sport discussion.

Business and the economy have their own dedicated strands, notably Nusantara Business Hour and Nusantara Economic Updates, reflecting the commercial background of NT Corp and the audience of decision-makers that a news-led channel seeks. Earlier Nusantara-branded bulletins, including Nusantara Pagi, Nusantara Siang, Nusantara Petang, Nusantara Malam and Nusantara Sepekan, formed the previous generation of the news schedule before the NTV News naming took over. Election coverage has been presented under titles including NTV Election, Nusantara Memilih and Sudut Pemilu, and political talk has included Panggung Politik. Together these programmes show a station attempting the full range of a national news operation, from morning bulletins to crime reporting, business updates, sport and set-piece political coverage, from a single Jakarta newsroom.

Entertainment, Culture and Other Programming

Beyond news, Nusantara TV has maintained the cultural and entertainment programming promised in its original general brief. Lifestyle and food coverage includes 100% Recommended and Jelajah Rasa. Infotainment and magazine programmes include Celebrity Fresh, Kok Bisa Viral, LOL and Ooh I See. Music has included Senandung Religi and Soundcore Dangdut, and the wider Soundcore brand has appeared in music and podcast formats. Religious programming includes Ibadah Online NTV and Zona Islam. Sport beyond the newsroom has included Liga Nusantara football coverage, and the network's past schedules ranged widely, from the Indonesian Basketball League and One Prix motorcycle racing shared with tvOne, to documentary and feature strands such as Dokumenter Asia, Cerita dari Asia, Mata Dunia and Dunia Kita, film slots, cartoons and Asian drama series.

That breadth is part of the station's record and should not be written out of its story because of the later news focus. For most of its life Nusantara TV was deliberately a general channel, describing its output as entertainment alongside news on politics, the economy, law and other public affairs. Programmes such as Petualang Nusantara, Patriot Nusantara, Nusantarasa and Bumi Hijau used the archipelago itself as subject matter, presenting travel, environment and national culture to a national audience. The 2024 change narrowed the emphasis; it did not erase the general and cultural strand, which continues in smaller parts of the schedule and in the station's digital output.

People and Presentation

Nusantara TV's present presenting team for its news and discussion programmes draws heavily on journalists who previously worked at larger Indonesian newsrooms. Alongside editor-in-chief Abraham Silaban, its listed presenters have included Anita Mae, Anisha Dasuki, Boy Noya, Desmona Chandra, Ellen Gracia, Tascha Liudmila and others with backgrounds at Metro TV, iNews, CNN Indonesia, CNBC Indonesia, Kompas TV, SCTV, RCTI and TVRI, among others. That recruitment pattern matches the 2024 strategy: a smaller network seeking news credibility hired recognisable journalists with national bulletin experience rather than building a newsroom entirely from new presenters.

The station's visual identity was refreshed on 14 October 2019, the same date as its current trademark registration, when it launched a logo built around a blue triangular form with white NTV lettering, described as expressing a new spirit in providing information and education. The slogan Sahabat Kita has remained the public promise through both the general-entertainment and news-led periods, presenting the channel as a companion rather than an authority figure, a softer tone than the urgency branding used by most dedicated news competitors.

How to Watch and Place in the Market

Nusantara TV can be watched free of charge through digital terrestrial television, by free-to-air satellite at the listed frequency of 3720 MHz, and through live streaming on its official site and on platforms including Vidio and MAXStream TV, where its virtual channel position is listed as 32. Its website, nusantaratv.com, functions as a continuously updated news portal carrying the day's reporting, popular stories and live television, alongside sister digital brands shown in its live and network section. In this directory the network is recorded with Bogor, West Java, reflecting its West Java listing in source lists, while its operational headquarters is NT Tower in East Jakarta; viewers should use the official site for current local frequencies, which vary by multiplex and region.

In the wider Indonesian market, Nusantara TV is significant less for its size than for what it attempted. It launched as one of the new digital-era entrants that the analogue incumbents did not face in their first decades, proved that a digital-first station could obtain permanent licensing and multiplex capacity, endured the long delay in national digital migration and the pandemic advertising shock, and then reinvented itself as a news-led network under senior editorial leadership. Its story, from 10 November 2015 to the present, is a concise history of Indonesian television's digital transition itself, and of the difficulty and opportunity that transition created for new national broadcasters.