.tv

Overview

• .tv is the country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) assigned to Tuvalu.
• The string "tv" is naturally associated with "television," so the TLD has been widely marketed and adopted for video- and broadcast-related websites worldwide.
• Although intended for entities connected with Tuvalu, .tv is used globally and has comparatively little use within Tuvalu itself.

History

• Implemented: March 18, 1996.
• Early commercialisation: In the late 1990s the Government of Tuvalu sought marketing partners to monetise the domain and entered licensing agreements with private companies.
• Notable registry/management timeline:
  • Information.CA / .tv Corporation (late 1990s) — initial commercialisation proposals and licensing deals.
  • Idealab (late 1990s) — took over licensing arrangements after earlier delays in payments.
  • Verisign (acquired .tv Corporation on 31 December 2001) — ran the registry for many years and renegotiated payments and registration pricing.
  • GoDaddy Registry (contract signed 14 December 2021) — current registry operator, with increased annual payments to Tuvalu.
• Financial impact and milestones:
  • Early licensing deals involved multi‑million dollar upfront and quarterly payments (original negotiated figures included a $50 million package in agreements discussed during the 1998–2000 period and various renegotiations thereafter).
  • By 2019, proceeds from .tv accounted for a material share of Tuvalu's government revenue (Wiki states ~8.4% of government revenue in 2019) and provided millions in yearly receipts.
  • 2014: Twitch (a prominent .tv site) was acquired by Amazon for US$1 billion, highlighting the commercial value of the namespace.
  • 2023: Tuvalu established a .tv Unit at the Tuvalu Telecommunications Corporation to coordinate marketing, sales and branding of the TLD.

Usage and Audience

• Primary positioning: marketed commercially for television, streaming, video and other media-rich sites.
• Typical users and industries:
  • Streaming platforms and content creators (example: Twitch).
  • Media companies and broadcasters (news services and specialty channels).
  • Brands and businesses seeking a memorable, media‑focused domain hack.
• Examples of well-known uses listed in source materials:
  • Twitch (twitch.tv) — high-profile .tv site leading to substantial attention and value for the TLD.
  • Various large services and events referenced as using .tv domains or related deployments include news outlets and streaming/entertainment services.
• Scale: hundreds of thousands of .tv domains have been registered.

Registration Rules

• Eligibility:
  • Anyone worldwide may register and transfer .tv domain names; there are no nationality or local-presence restrictions mentioned.
• Structure and reserved names:
  • Direct second-level registrations are allowed (example: example.tv).
  • Some second-level names (such as gov.tv, net.tv, org.tv, com.tv) are reserved for third-level registrations representing Tuvaluan entities.
• Technical/composition requirements (per registry policy):
  • Length: minimum 1 character, maximum 63 characters.
  • Allowed characters: letters (a–z, A–Z), digits (0–9) and hyphens (-).
  • Names must begin and end with a letter or digit (cannot begin or end with a hyphen).
  • Hyphens are not permitted in both the third and fourth positions simultaneously (i.e., the "xn--" style restriction is enforced to avoid invalid punycode conflicts).
  • Spaces are not allowed.
• Registration periods & pricing:
  • Historically registries have set varying minimum registration periods (Verisign at one point offered registrations with a minimum two‑year term); pricing and premium tiers vary over time.
• Premium domain names:
  • The registry designates certain names as premium (one-, two-, three-character names, high-value keywords, generic terms) and prices them higher. Examples of recorded premium sales and auctions exist (e.g., business.tv sold via auction, Travel.tv previously sold).

SEO and Brand Impact

• Search engines and categorisation:
  • Google treats .tv as a generic top-level domain (gTLD) for search purposes because it is commonly perceived and used as a generic, media‑oriented namespace rather than strictly country-targeted.
• Brand positioning:
  • The TLD is widely marketed for video, streaming and media brands, giving registrants a clear semantic association with television and video content.
• Trust and abuse considerations:
  • High-profile abuse and law-enforcement actions have affected some .tv-hosted services (for example, seizures of streaming domains tied to piracy occurred when registries/operators were subject to U.S. jurisdiction).
  • A distinct issue arose around free subdomain providers using names like .co.tv (not the official .tv registry hierarchy) that were abused by scammers; Google took measures to filter those results. This highlights that malicious activity on related or lookalike domains can affect perceptions, though it is separate from the official .tv registry.

Notable Cases or Examples

• Twitch (twitch.tv): became a major success in the .tv space and was acquired by Amazon in 2014 for about US$1 billion.
• High-profile usages and associations cited in source material include news services, streaming platforms and events (examples named include major streaming and media brands and the Eurovision Song Contest).
• Premium and notable domain transactions:
  • Documented sales and auctions include names such as Travel.tv, business.tv and other high-value keywords sold as premium domains.
  • emmy.tv was registered to the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences at no cost in exchange for promotion during the 2000 Emmy Awards broadcast.
• Enforcement and seizure example:
  • Firstrowsports.tv and related infringing streaming domains were seized by U.S. authorities in a copyright‑enforcement action, demonstrating that sites hosted under .tv can be subject to legal action depending on registry/operator jurisdiction and the conduct of the site owners.

% IANA WHOIS server
% for more information on IANA, visit http://www.iana.org
% This query returned 1 object

domain:       TV

organisation: Ministry of Justice, Communications and Foreign Affairs
address:      2 Vaiaku Rd
address:      Vaiaku Funafuti
address:      Tuvalu

contact:      administrative
name:         Ministry of Justice, Communications and Foreign Affairs
address:      2 Vaiaku Rd
address:      Vaiaku Funafuti
address:      Tuvalu
phone:        +(688) 20069
e-mail:       ict@gov.tv

contact:      technical
name:         IANA Contact
organisation: GoDaddy Registry
address:      100 S. Mill Ave, Suite 1600
address:      Tempe AZ 85281
address:      United States of America (the)
phone:        +1 480 505 8800
fax-no:       +1 480 624 2546
e-mail:       iana@registry.godaddy

nserver:      A.NIC.TV 2001:dcd:1:0:0:0:0:6 37.209.192.6
nserver:      B.NIC.TV 2001:dcd:2:0:0:0:0:6 37.209.194.6
nserver:      C.NIC.TV 2001:dcd:3:0:0:0:0:6 37.209.196.6
nserver:      X.NIC.TV 156.154.103.22 2610:a1:1010:0:0:0:0:22
nserver:      Y.NIC.TV 156.154.104.22 2610:a1:1011:0:0:0:0:22
nserver:      Z.NIC.TV 156.154.105.22 2610:a1:1012:0:0:0:0:22
ds-rdata:     57277 8 2 cdf61faf1ebc9d83d5bc3d9de22e794ae8acdb0475ea8cf27e92cc00f0c3f5f9

whois:        whois.nic.tv

status:       ACTIVE
remarks:      Registration information: https://turnon.tv/

created:      1996-03-18
changed:      2025-08-21
source:       IANA