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Nacionalna Televizija Happy
Type	Television channel (1998–present); Radio station (1994–2006);
Branding	Happy
Country	Serbia
Availability	Worldwide
Founded	July 22, 1994; 30 years ago; Belgrade, Serbia
Headquarters	Aleksandra Dubčeka 14; Belgrade
Key people	Predrag Ranković (Chairperson); Milomir Marić (Editor-in-chief); Silvana Stanković (Director of communications);
Launch date	Radio: July 22, 1994; 30 years ago; Television: August 22, 1998; 26 years ago;
Former names	Košava (1994—2010); Kanal 1 (2001)
Picture format	576i (16:9 SDTV)
Official website	www.happytv.rs
Language	Serbian

Nacionalna Televizija Happy (often shortened to Happy) is a privately owned TV channel in Serbia. Happy has gained a strong reputation for its entertainment programming. The station offers a compilation of international and domestic movies, American sitcoms, dramas, Indian soap operas and Latin telenovelas, as well as locally produced talk/variety shows.

Happy's parent company is the Belgrade-based Invej, which also owns many business entities that often serve as sponsors of the program, which is owned by Predrag Ranković.

History

Happy was previously called Košava, the latter once owned by Marija Milošević, daughter of Slobodan Milošević, Serbia's authoritarian president in power during the 1990s. Marija Milošević sold her ownership in Kosava TV to lawyer Borivoj Pajović, who was at the time President of the board of directors in the daily newspaper Blic.^[1]

After a couple of ownership changes, in 2006 the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media issued Košava with a license for national coverage, which was shared with kids channel Happy – while Happy aired exclusively kids programming in the morning, Košava broadcast informative and current affairs programs in the evening. At that time, REM's (then RRA) decision was disputed since neither TV stations had the capacity for national broadcasting, unlike, for example, RTL which competed for a license but was not issued one.

In 2007, Predrag Ranković, known to the public for involvement in shady business deals, bought part of Košava, although his name was never mentioned in formal ownership documents. In 2010, Košava bought Happy, and Košava changed its name to Happy and started to broadcast as one program. The former kids channel Happy changed its name to Happy Kids, before closing in 2017.^[2]

Programming

It broadcasts many international and domestic movies and TV series which have resulted in large viewership not only in Serbia but also in the Serbian diaspora where Happy TV is present.

Since its beginnings, Happy TV has made several reality shows (especially Parovi) in cooperation with Emotion Production, and as result of it they broadcast a local version of the internationally well-known Wife Swap, called Menjam ženu, which had been broadcast earlier on RTV Pink. They also made a Serbian version of Wheel of Fortune called Kolo sreće,^[3] and later show called Soba sreće.^[4]