About Metro TV

Metro TV

Metro TV is an Indonesian free-to-air television news network based in West Jakarta, in the capital city of Jakarta. Operated by PT Media Televisi Indonesia and owned by Media Group, it holds a distinctive place in Indonesian broadcasting as the country's first dedicated news television network. Metro TV was officially launched on 25 November 2000 and has broadcast twenty-four hours a day ever since, with a schedule built around domestic and international news rather than the drama serials, known in Indonesia as sinetron, that dominate most rival networks. Its official website is metrotvnews.com, and its broadcasts are in Indonesian, with English and Mandarin also used in parts of its programming.

Launch and presidential inauguration

Metro TV was launched on 25 November 2000 by Abdurrahman Wahid, the fourth President of Indonesia. Contemporary and later accounts note that Metro TV was the first Indonesian television network to have been officially inaugurated by the President of Indonesia himself, after RCTI. The first news anchor and first newscast at the launch are associated with Putra Nababan. Trial broadcasting preceded the official launch, with a trial broadcast recorded on 25 October 2000. The company behind the channel had earlier roots recorded under names including MTI TV and DVN TV, before the service took to air as Metro TV in 2000. From the beginning, the concept was deliberately different from other Indonesian stations: a channel that broadcast around the clock and focused on news from around the world, rather than mixing occasional bulletins into an entertainment schedule.

Ownership and Media Group

Metro TV is owned by Surya Paloh, who also owns the Media Indonesia daily newspaper. Together, Metro TV, Media Indonesia and other newspapers distributed in different parts of Indonesia make up Media Group. The channel was at first established as a joint venture involving Media Group and Bimantara Citra, and since October 2003 it has been wholly owned by Media Group, which also owns the Lampung Post newspaper. Its headquarters are in the Media Group Building on Jalan Pilar Mas Raya, Kav. A-D, Kebon Jeruk, in West Jakarta. Arief Suditomo is listed among its key people. Because Surya Paloh is also a political figure associated with the NasDem Party, Metro TV is often described in commentary as closely aligned with, or a mouthpiece of, that party, a characterisation that forms part of the wider Indonesian debate about media ownership and political influence.

A news-only concept in an entertainment market

The defining editorial choice of Metro TV is what it does not show. The network does not offer soap operas, and sources on the channel repeatedly stress that, unlike other Indonesian stations, Metro TV never airs sinetrons. Instead, its twenty-four-hour schedule is filled with news bulletins, current affairs discussion, documentaries, business coverage and informational programmes about technology, health, economics, general knowledge, arts and culture. For its first years it stood alone in that position: Metro TV was the only news channel in Indonesia until 2008, when Lativi was rebranded as tvOne and dropped its sitcoms and soap operas to focus on news and sports. That eight-year period as the sole dedicated news network shaped Metro TV's identity as Indonesia's first news television station, a description the channel itself uses and which is reflected in its long-running slogan, in use since 2010, Knowledge to Elevate.

Flagship news programming

The core of the schedule is the Metro news strand, which is not a single programme but a family of bulletins across the day. They include Metro Pagi Primetime in the morning, Metro Siang at lunchtime, Metro Hari Ini in the afternoon, Primetime News in the evening and Top News late at night. Metro Hari Ini has been part of the channel since its first day, with its time slot changing many times over the decades as the schedule evolved. Metro Pagi Primetime began life as Metro Pagi and has likewise moved through many early-morning slots. Earlier bulletins included Metro This Morning and News Flash, with Metro This Morning ending in October 2007. The structure reflects a rolling-news model in which the same newsroom serves morning, midday, afternoon, evening and late-night audiences with updated editions rather than a single daily bulletin.

Talk shows and current affairs

Beyond bulletins, Metro TV became known for personality-led talk shows that took the host's name. Kick Andy, hosted by Andy F. Noya, presented inspirational stories of experience and achievement by individuals and groups, in a format intended to motivate viewers; studies of audience response describe it as a formal but at times relaxed programme built around guests' life stories. Mata Najwa, hosted by senior journalist Najwa Shihab, premiered on 25 November 2009 and aired on Wednesday evenings, presenting topical discussions with prominent guests including former President B. J. Habibie, former Vice President Jusuf Kalla and Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo. Mata Najwa won and was nominated for a number of honours, including a nomination at the 15th Asian Television Awards for its episode Separuh Jiwaku Pergi, a KPI Award nomination and, in 2014, a KPI Award for best talk show programme. The programme left Metro TV in August 2017. Other talk formats in the channel's history include Just Alvin, hosted by Alvin Adam, the motivational programme Mario Teguh Golden Ways, and late-night formats such as Midnight Live, which combined studio interviews with on-location reporting and viewer interaction, and its later successor Meet Nite Live, launched on 21 March 2025 and hosted by Valentinus Resa and Otonk Setiabudi.

English, Mandarin and multicultural programming

Metro TV is distinctive in Indonesia for broadcasting news in foreign languages alongside Indonesian. It has broadcast three English-language programmes, World News, Indonesia Now and Talk Indonesia, and Chinese-language programmes such as Metro Xin Wen. It has been described as the only television network in Indonesia to offer Mandarin-language news. Alongside news, the schedule has included information technology, documentary and culinary programmes, the technology talk show e-Lifestyle, the satirical news and current affairs show News Dot Com, also known as Republik Mimpi, meaning The Dream Republic, and musical programming such as Musik+ and Idenesia. Business programming has included Economic Challenges and Bisnis Hari Ini, meaning Business Today, which is no longer aired. The channel also carries an infomercial block, usually for residential property but sometimes for other products and technology, typically on weekend mornings on its network stations.

Network, distribution and digital transition

From its Jakarta base, Metro TV built a nationwide relay network. Sources describe more than 52 relay stations around the country, and a Deutsche Welle market summary in 2012 described it as broadcast from Jakarta with a network of 53 regional stations. A later academic account described its broadcasts as available digitally and terrestrially in 280 cities across Indonesia, transmitted from 25 transmitters. The channel broadcasts in 1080i high definition, downscaled for standard-definition feeds, and is available through streaming services including its official live stream, IndiHome TV, Vidio and Vision+, as well as worldwide via YouTube. Metro TV took part in Indonesia's digital switchover: from 3 November 2022 it stopped analogue PAL broadcasts for the Greater Jakarta area, followed on 3 December 2022 by analogue switch-off in Bandung, Semarang, Surakarta, Yogyakarta and Batam, with Palembang following on 31 March 2023. In August 2019, TVRI together with Metro TV, Trans7 and the communications ministry had officially launched digital television broadcasts for Indonesia's border regions in Nunukan Regency, North Kalimantan, as part of preparing audiences for analogue switch-off.

Expansion under Media Group

Metro TV became the foundation for a wider Media Group television family. In 2019 the group prepared two digital sister channels, which began trial broadcasts together on 25 November 2019, Metro TV's nineteenth anniversary: Magna Channel, an entertainment and lifestyle service that officially launched on 16 July 2020, and the business service first known as BNTV, relaunched as BN Channel on 12 September 2022. In August 2021 the group also launched Metro Globe Network as an English-language news companion to Metro TV, broadcasting eighteen hours a day across multiple platforms. On the digital side, Media Group launched the Podme.id digital content service on 30 September 2019 as a companion to Metro TV journalism, and later developed the MG Radio Network. During the COVID-19 pandemic period, Metro TV's long-running Channel Japan programme, which offered insight into Japan, was discontinued in early April 2020.

Identity, slogans and international links

Metro TV's visual identity is centred on an eagle emblem. The current logo has been used since 20 May 2010. During the network's twentieth anniversary on 25 November 2020, the on-screen bug was replaced with the eagle icon with the words METRO TV in smaller size below it, and a year later the text was removed from the on-screen bug entirely, leaving only the eagle, while the full logo remains in corporate use. Its slogans trace its positioning over time: Leading the Change from 2007 to 2008, Be Smart Be Informed from 2008 to 2010, and Knowledge to Elevate from 2010 to the present. Each anniversary has carried its own theme, from News Media Telecast Service in 2001 through to Journey with Empathy in 2025. Internationally, Metro TV has collaborated with foreign television stations through news exchange and workforce development, and in November 2023 it signed a content-sharing agreement with the Chinese state media outlet China Media Group.

Place in Indonesian television

Metro TV occupies the position of pioneer in Indonesian news broadcasting. It proved that a free-to-air channel could sustain a twenty-four-hour schedule without the sinetron serials that drive ratings elsewhere, and it remained the country's only dedicated news channel for its first eight years. Its combination of rolling bulletins under the Metro brand, named-host talk shows such as Kick Andy and Mata Najwa, foreign-language news in English and Mandarin, and a nationwide relay network made it a reference point for later news competitors, including tvOne, iNews, Kompas TV and the Trans Media news channels. As the anchor television service of Media Group, alongside Media Indonesia in print and its newer digital sister channels Magna Channel, BN Channel and Metro Globe Network, Metro TV continues to broadcast news, business, documentary and current affairs programming in Indonesian to audiences across Indonesia and, through streaming and YouTube, worldwide.