Television first came to Việt Nam during the 1960s when the Americans set up the black and white TV station Truyền hình Việt Nam (THVN) in Sài Gòn with two channels - one in English and one in Vietnamese. By the early 1970s local television stations had also been established in Huế, Đà Nẵng, Nha Trang, Quy Nhơn and Cần Thơ.

Today Việt Nam Television (VTV) comprises five channels: VTV 1 (channel 9) focuses on news and current affairs; VTV 2 (channel 11) covers science, technology and education; and VTV 3 (channel 22) offers sports and entertainment programmes. Launched in 2000, the international channel VTV 4 offers the best of local programming from all three domestic channels via satellite to Vietnamese audiences in Asia, North Africa, Europe, North America and South West Australia. A fifth channel, VTV5, was introduced in 2002 to serve the ethnic minority communities living in Việt Nam. In 2003 VTV1, VTV2, VTV3 and VTV5 were also made available via satellite and since 2006 it has been possible to view all of VTV's channels free of charge online via the website of the Việt Nam Multimedia Corporation (VTC). VTV’s regional broadcasting centres are located at Hồ Chí Minh City, Huế, Nha Trang, Cần Thơ, Vinh and Tam Đảo. VTV’s programmes are also relayed nationwide via the country’s network of provincial and municipal television stations.

Following a major national broadcasting development programme in the late 1990s, transmitters have now been established in most outlying areas of the country. In 2003 it was reported that more than 80 per cent of all urban households owned a television set, and whilst in the countryside this percentage is estimated to be considerably less, even the most remote village cafes are nowadays equipped with TVs and video players. Since 2001 VTV has broadcast weekly programmes of 30 minutes each in the H’mông, Dao, Ê-đ ê, M’nông, Gia-rai, Xơ đăng, Cơ-ho, Ra-glai, Chăm, Xtiêng and Khmer languages in regions with sizeable ethnic minority populations.

Since 1975 all of Việt Nam’s major cities and most of its 59 provinces have been given their own television stations; 53 of these take the form of combined radio and television stations. Hà Nội Radio and Television Station began life as a radio station in 1954; its single television channel was set up in 1975. Like its counterpart in Hà Nội, Hải Phòng Radio and Television Station originated as a radio station in 1956 but was upgraded to a combined radio and television studio in 1975. As noted above, several of the regional television stations in the southern half of the country were originally established before 1975 under American sponsorship. Hồ Chí Minh City Television Station (HTV) originated as the former South Vietnamese broadcaster Truyền hình Việt Nam (THVN); it now broadcasts on the two channels, HTV 7 and HTV 9, which cover Hồ Chí Minh City and a wide area of the Mekong Delta. Cần Thơ Radio and Television Station, Cần Thơ Television Station, Đà Nẵng Television Station, Huế Television Station and Thừa Thiên Huế Radio and Television Station also derive from the American era.

In recent years both Việt Nam Television (VTV) and Hồ Chí Minh City Television Company (HTV) have established their own film production studios with a view to making TV movies, documentaries and light entertainment programmes on contract. Several acclaimed made-for-TV movies and mini-series produced by Việt Nam Television Film Centre (VFC) and Hồ Chí Minh City Television Film Studio (TFS) have been successfully marketed overseas. However, only 30 per cent of the films and TV serials currently shown on Vietnamese television are currently made locally. The rest are imported from overseas and screened with a voice-over in Vietnamese. In recent years melodramatic Korean and Chinese soap operas have become the mainstay of nightly entertainment on VTV 3.

On the other hand the amount of cultural programming screened on VTV 1 – ranging from live and recorded performances of orchestral concerts, ballets and traditional theatre to special programmes on ethnic minority culture, the physical heritage and leading artists and writers – compares extremely favourably in both quality and quantity to that seen on the terrestrial television channels of many western countries.