[4] EBC was established by order of Emperor Haile Selassie and initially operated by Thomson, a British firm.

Ethiopian Television was initially established during Haile Selassie reign era in 1962 with assistance from the British firm, Thomson.

It was created to highlight the Organization of African Unity (OAU) meeting that took place in Addis Ababa that same year.

Color television started on an experimental basis in 1979, with regular colour transmissions beginning in 1984 in commemoration of the founding of Workers' Party of Ethiopia (WPE).

[8] With the aim of liberalizing the Ethiopian television market, the government upgraded ETV's status to be commercially viable.

In March 2018, EBC's logo was transferred to ETV and made a new transmission of frequency and sister's channel contents, and it is now broadcasting on Ethiosat and Nilesat.

This channel also airs a lot of popular foreign content including soap operas and Hollywood films.