Nova TV is a Croatian free-to-air television network launched on 28 May 2000. It was the first commercial television network with national concession in the country. From 2004 until 2018, it was fully owned by the Central European Media Enterprises. In 2018, Direct Media purchased Nova TV and Doma TV.
Nova TV is, along with HRT and RTL, one of the three Croatian television channels that air the largest amount of original programming in Croatia. The channel has its own everyday news programming, as well as various scripted television series. A smaller quantity of original reality and game show series is also aired by the channel. The channel also airs acquired foreign programming, both television series (mostly English or Turkish) and movies.
Currently, Nova TV's programming schedule usually consists of children's programming (mostly acquired animated series) airing in the morning, followed by re-runs of original and acquired television series during the day. The prime time is generally reserved for news and other original programming.
Dnevnik Nove TV is the main news program of Nova TV. It is broadcast daily at 19:00 UTC. , and it was the second most popular news program in Croatia, closing in on Dnevnik HRT, its main competitor. Dnevnik Nove TV overtook Dnevnik HRT in 2010, becoming the most watched news programme in Croatia. Since its launch in 2005, the style of the broadcast has changed little.
A minor incident occurred in 2015, when Milorad Pupovac, a vice-president of Independent Democratic Serb Party, was forced out of the programme for his speech on the removal of Cyrillic tables in Vukovar by an amendment of the City Statute, due to "being in 2015". Both sides, Serbian and Croatian, apparently condemned the incident, some likening it with the forced takeaway of the right to free speech. However, Nova TV soon issued a response in which they said that:
<blockquote>Nova TV's news anchor sought to focus the guest on the issue for which he was invited to the show. Given the fact that our guest continuously kept digressing off the topic, the host had to end the conversation at certain moment because [...] it was a live interview, within a show which also deals with other topics [...]. Just like many times before, Mr. Pupovac will continue being relevant and respected guest in our studios.</blockquote>
The station also became notable for showing one of the first Croatian sitcoms called Naà ¡a mala klinika, which started to air in November 2004, and in early June 2005 the channel started airing another locally produced sitcom called Bumerang.
In 2003, Nova TV premiered the first Croatia iteration of American Idol titled Story Supernova Music Talents, which was then followed by the Croatian version of Pop Idol called Hrvatski idol in 2004.
Supertalent, the Croatian entry in the Got Talent franchise, is a part of Nova TV's staple programming, airing since September 2009. It is one of Nova TV's longest-running original series, set to enter its eleventh season in Fall 2024. Nova TV rebooted Ples sa zvijezdama, which previously aired 8 seasons on HRT 1. A reboot of Survivor, which previously aired a season on HRT 2 in 2005 and another one on RTL in 2012, premiered on Nova TV in March 2022.