: For other uses, see ETV (disambiguation).

e.tv is the fifth television channel in South Africa. It is the first privately owned, free-to-air television channel in the country, the other three major channels being owned by the state-owned South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and the other privately-owned channel, M-Net being subscription-funded.

The channel is owned by black empowerment group Hosken Consolidated Investments(HCI) and VenFin, an arm of the Rupert business empire. Midi-TV, the consortuim that won the licence in early 1998 to operate the channel, has had many changes in ownership but the dominant player has always been HCI.

Warner Bros. which had been part of the consortium sold their 25% shareholding of the channel after three years concerned that they would never be able to excercise full ownership. This was due to South Africa s media ownership laws that states that foreigner entities could not own more than 25% of a television channel.

The channel broadcasts from Cape Town and Johannesburg with it s prime time evening news bulletin at 7pm being broadcast from Johannesburg. The late night bulletin is broadcast from Cape Town.

Recently e.tv has courted controversy from conservative and religious groups because it broadcasts soft porn on the weekends late at night. A combination of these broadcasts and blockbuster movies shown for the first time on free-to-air television have ensured that the channel won the ratings war with the SABC stations, especially on the weekends.

e.tv is the only terrestrial TV channel in South Africa that produces independent news broadcasts. Their reports are sometimes critical of the, the SABC, for its alleged close ties to the ruling African National Congress. They have been engaged in an ongoing ratings war against SABC news, including very public print and outdoor campaigns that imply an inherent bias in the SABC s news coverage. A more recent public campaign of theirs was to join a coalition of media outlets in a lawsuit to allow a live audio and/or video feed to be broadcast from a very public trail involving a government official accused of corruption.

Apart from their locally produced television dramas, aimed mostly at the urban youth market, e.tv screens local and blockbuster feature films and many popular international series, including shows from US subscription networks like HBO.

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