The Central Television of the USSR (Russian: Центральное телевидение СССР, romanized: Tsentral'noye televideniye SSSR; abbreviated CT USSR, SCTV [Russian: ЦТ СССР, romanized: TsT SSSR]) was the state television broadcaster of the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union television service began full-time experimental test broadcasts on 1 March 1938.

The USSR television service began experimental test broadcasts on 7 May 1945 (two days before the German surrender), in preparation for its full reopening.

On 22 March 1951, Moscow TV was renamed, to avoid confusion by viewers about the forthcoming local channels, becoming the Central Television Station, later known as Programme 1.

[5] In October 1954, a 20-minute highlight film of a friendly match between British team Arsenal and Dynamo Moscow was broadcast on BBC Television.

Science and technology programming formerly on Programme 4 moved to Programme 6 when that channel was launched on 25 December 1971. Notable annual traditions of the Soviet Central Television network included the telecasts of the Red Square demonstrations on May Day, Victory Day and the October Revolution anniversary parades, and the broadcast of the film The Irony of Fate (Or Enjoy Your Bath!)

Test colour broadcasting started in Moscow as early as January 1960 using OSKM system (625 lines version of NTSC), but lasted only a few months.

The OSKM abbreviation means "Simultaneous system with quadrature modulation" (In Russian: Одновременная Система с Квадратурной Модуляцией[8]).

SÉCAM Colour television was introduced on 1 October 1967, making the Soviet Union the fourth country in Europe to switch to colour broadcast, after the United Kingdom's BBC2, West Germany's ARD and ZDF, and France's ORTF (see Timeline of the introduction of color television in countries), again ready for the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution on 7 November 1967.

That same year, Soviet Central Television displayed a US president for the first time - a fifteen-minute documentary of president-elect Jimmy Carter produced by the American government.

However, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 had caused outrage in the west, leading to a boycott of the games by 64 western-aligned nations.

In 1988, the USSR-built Gorizont satellite was launched, providing television programming to much of Europe and northern Africa, and even eastern parts of the Americas.

The programmes of all the Eastern European socialist republics, including the CT USSR channels, were broadcast on the satellite.

However, after the rule of the CPSU began to break down in 1990, CT USSR reformed their programmes to remove propaganda and to report news freely.

In recognition of its reliable coverage, the programme was re-broadcast on several TV channels around the world (such as Australia's SBS and the United Kingdom's Sky News).

CT USSR, at the same time, started a number of new programme strands and formats, including talk shows.

Employees of CT USSR were worried about job prospects in the new broadcaster and also had a loyalty to Soviet Central Television.

However, the command economy had little or no competition between brands, so advertising was limited to informing viewers of the prices and availability of products.

The satirical TV series Second City Television did a 1980 episode consisting of skits centered around a Russian satellite signal overriding the SCTV satellite and causing Russian TV to be broadcast on SCTV's signal, with Soviet Central Television satirized as 'CCCP1' (Three CP One) and 'CCCP2' (Three CP Two) and containing further satires of Russian programing with shows like Tibor's Tractor (a farmer has a tractor that is the reincarnation of Nikita Khrushchev, spoofing My Mother The Car), Hey Georgy (a man wanders around Russia helping everybody, spoofing King of Kensington), and a daytime show, Today is Moscow.