page_title: Television in Israel
section_title: Second channel
hierarchical_section_title: Television in Israel / History / Second channel
caption_attribution_description: English: Eretz Nehederet (Hebrew: ארץ נהדרת‎, lit. A Wonderful Country) is a satirical Israeli television show, which made its debut on November 2, 2003, featuring satirical references to current affairs of the past week through parodies of the people involved, as well as the thoughts of recurring characters. The program is one of the most watched and influential shows on Israeli TV. It was first filmed in Tel Aviv, and in later seasons, was filmed in the neighboring Herzliya.
context_page_description: Television in Israel refers to television broadcasting services in the State of Israel, inaugurated on March 24, 1966. Initially, there was one state-owned channel, operated jointly by the Israel Broadcasting Authority and the Israeli Educational Television. In 1986, a second state-regulated channel was launched. This channel became a state-regulated commercial channel in 1993. An additional commercial channel was introduced in 2002, followed by the introduction of three commercial niche channels: an Israeli Russian-speaking channel, a channel of Israeli popular music and an Arabic-speaking channel. Colour transmissions were introduced gradually around 1977 and 1979. Multichannel cable television service became available to subscribers gradually since 1989, although illegal cable TV stations were present in the big cities during the 1980s. Satellite-based multichannel service has been available since 2000.
  Almost 75% of the population is subscribed to pay TV systems which are provided either by a cable service called "HOT", or by a satellite service called "yes".
context_section_description: In 1978 the Israeli government appointed a special committee to explore the establishment of a second channel that would not be under the IBA supervision and would be financed by advertising, however the idea of commercial television was rejected by some parties in the ruling coalition. On 7 October 1986, Prof. Amnon Rubinstein, the then Israeli Minister of Communications ordered the beginning of "experimental transmissions" on a second channel, claiming that unless these transmissions had started, the frequencies would have been used by TV networks in neighbouring countries. First transmissions were aired on UHF channel 21 from Mount Eitanim transmission tower situated on the hills west of Jerusalem. These transmissions, which initially included 2–3 hours of video clips every evening and broadcast from a private TV studio in Jerusalem, expanded gradually to include a full program lineup. At this stage the IBA was legally responsible for the channel, but in fact it saw it as an unexpected competition, tried to prevent its inauguration, and was reluctant to take responsibility for its broadcasts. In 1986 the Knesset started discussing the law forming the Second Israeli Broadcasting Authority, which was finally approved in 1990. This new body took responsibility for the second channel from this year onwards. From 1990 to 1993 the Second Broadcasting Authority reviewed bids from commercial companies to establish the regular commercial broadcasts of the second channel, which started on 4 November 1993. The second channel was officially handed to three concessionaires, starting the first commercial broadcasts in Israel, with IETV as the fourth broadcaster which was entitled, by law, for additional hours on this channel as a commercial entity.
caption: Eretz Nehederet studio
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