Europa TV was a consortium of five European public service broadcasters from West Germany (ARD), Ireland (RTÉ), Italy (RAI), the Netherlands (NOS) and Portugal (RTP). History Development This aspired to be pan-European not only with regard to its geographical reach but also its programming content. It came after the Eurikon experiment that consisted on the production of an experimental television service which over a period of five weeks, was distributed in closed-circuit format. Europa TV was financed through contributions from the Dutch government, the European Commission, the participating broadcast organizations and through advertising revenues within its initial three-year budget was 30 million ECUs. Operation Europa TV started its transmissions on 5 October 1985 and initially only available in the Netherlands, which expanded its reach to 4.5 million households across Europe via ESA and Eutelsat's ECS-1 satellite. This included access to 1.5 million households in Portugal where it was transmitted terrestrially on RTP2 (in other countries that the signal was also distributed by cable). To overcome language barriers, Europa TV transmitted on several sound channels within facilities for simultaneous translation (in English, Dutch, German and Portuguese) enabled audiences to receive the channel in their native tongue. In addition, subtitling in different languages was provided through teletext. Closure On 29 November 1986, it was forced to cease operations having already exhausted its initial three-year budget. See also List of European television stations International broadcasting Arte BBC TV Europe Euronews Eurosport Music Box NBC Europe (formerly Super Channel) Screensport Sky Television References Television channels and stations established in 1985 Multilingual broadcasters Publicly funded broadcasters European Broadcasting Union members 1980s in Europe German-language television networks Television stations in Germany 1980s in German television English-language television stations Raidió Teilifís Éireann 1980s in Irish television Rai (broadcaster) Italian-language television networks 1980s in Italian television Dutch public broadcasting organisations Netherlands Public Broadcasting Dutch-language television networks 1980s in Dutch television Rádio e Televisão de Portugal Portuguese-language television networks 1980s in Portuguese television