In October 1981, Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon António Ribeiro demanded the government to authorize the creation of an exclusive television channel for the church, under Article 41-4 of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, enabling freedom of education for any religion and the use of media for its activities.

[5] Observers of the visit of Pope John Paul II to Portugal planned for May 1982 believed that it was part of the campaign of the Church's bid for a television channel.

It also received support from the RTL Group and wanted to follow the example of the Dutch Catholic omroep KRO and Catholic-backed local television stations in northern Italy.

Already under the name TVI, but marketed as 4, in which the '4' was the sole element in its logo, TVI was initially owned by some prominent Catholic Church institutions, including Rádio Renascença, RFM, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Público, Editorial Verbo and União das Misericórdias; Antena 3 Televisión (which consisted of La Vanguardia, ABC-Prensa Española, Manuel Martín Ferrand (4.3%), Rafael and Manuel Jiménez de Parga, Europa Press and Grupo Zeta), the Luxembourgish Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Télédiffusion, (CLT, now RTL Group), Sonae, the Scandinavian SBS Broadcasting Group and ITV contractor Yorkshire Television were minor stakeholders of TVI.

The evening began at 8pm with a special program introducing the contents of the channel, followed by the film The Natural (at the time, it was normal for Portuguese terrestrial television to air movies during primetime).

[15] TVI's initial schedule was built primarily by international feature films, with a selection from Lauro António, some foreign television series and a substantial amount of national production.

Notable early national productions included Telhados de Vidro, the first telenovela made for a private television station in Portugal, the children's program A Casa do Tio Carlos hosted by Carlos Alberto Moniz, which aired on Sunday mornings, and the Portuguese sitcom Cos(z)ido à Portuguesa on Tuesdays, with Florbela Queiroz.

In the following year, Rádio Renascença and the Catholic Church withdrew much of their shares from the channel, selling them to a British pensioners' fund.

[12] Because of that, the line-up changed again to a more low-cost offering, reducing the amount of national content and emphasizing more on imports, especially foreign television series, as a cheaper option.

Antena 3 Televisión had agreed to subscribe (50% with its Portuguese partner) an increase in capital of 1,300 million pesetas, to ensure control of the channel, which at the time had exclusive of the Spanish Soccer League.

The presence of Cisneros caused a political affair, where opposition leader Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa assured that the consortium has been benefited by the government to reduce TVI's debt interest.

After some experiments with pimba music concerts on specific dates, the channel had the task to premiere a program hosted by Miguel Sousa Tavares on April 29, aiming at another audience, whose name at the time was still kept in secret.

Moreover, TVI used the late afternoon slots to premiere an hour-long program, Nossa Gente, produced by D&D Audiovisuais, emphasizing on people with unusual hobbies.

The channel hired Carlos Ribeiro, who hosted Made in Portugal, to make a similar program related to the Portuguese popular music scene in the first trimester of the new year.

[20] The channel's eighth anniversary was observed without great ceremony, but had a special edition of Batatoon and the premiere of a new telenovela, Olhos de Água.

Regarding the Christian principles that once dominated the channel, Monteiro Coelho affirmed that they were still in use as "respect, freedom and exemption that even non-Catholics follow".

Like public service broadcaster RTP and unlike commercial rival SIC, which have always shown foreign programs in the original language with subtitles, TVI tried, unsuccessfully, to dub foreign programs into Portuguese after achieving marginal success with Latin American Spanish-language soap operas dubbed in Brazilian Portuguese.

In July 2010, TVI censored a kiss between two male characters on the youth TV series Morangos com Açúcar, due to pressure by a fundamentalist far-right organization, "National Resistance".

TVI's prime time is reserved for in-house programming, mainly soap operas, viewer-participation quizzes and reality shows, in a similar manner to its direct competitor SIC.