BTV is a comprehensive satellite TV channel under Beijing Radio and television. BTV-1 Beijing Satellite TV covers 29 provinces and cities in China and some countries and regions in Asia. It takes news programs as the main body and gathers all the excellent programs of the whole station to comprehensively display the overall style of Beijing TV, based on Beijing, facing the whole country and going to the world. In 2006, 24-hour broadcasting was realized. BTV is the oldest TV channel of Beijing TV. It was officially broadcast on May 16, 1979, formerly the first program of Beijing TV (channel 6), and then launched on January 1, 1998. In June 2001, the former Beijing Satellite TV merged with the former Beijing Cable Radio and television station. On September 28, 2009, BTV HD Channel was officially broadcast on the satellite. The channel covers Beijing, China, North America and Asia, with a total domestic population of more than 1 billion.