Television was introduced in Turkey in 1968 by the government media provider TRT, preceded by the first Turkish television channel ITU TV in 1952. Color television was introduced in 1981. TRT held a monopoly as state-owned public broadcaster for twenty years, until on 26 May 1989 Turkey's first private television channel Star TV started its broadcasts from Germany - thus legally not breaching the regulations. In the following years more than 100 local TVs and 500 local radio stations began operating without licenses. The TRT official monopoly was finally lifted in August 1993, with a Constitutional amendment, liberalizing private broadcasting. The newcomers were, Erol Aksoy launching Show TV, Cem Uzan and Ahmet Ozal launching Interstar (later named as Star TV), Vedat Yelkenci launching the first Music TV Genc TV and thereafter Number One MTV together with Karacan Brothers