n-tv (styled ntv) is a German free-to-air television news channel owned by RTL Deutschland. n-tv broadcasts news and weather every hour and half-hour in the morning. It also broadcasts magazine shows and documentaries.

n-tv began as a business development project at Time Warner International which, under the leadership of then-chairman Steve Ross, was looking for ways to grow its businesses internationally. Time Warner at the time was a major shareholder in Turner Broadcasting System, parent company of CNN (both now part of Warner Bros. Discovery), and began looking for ways to get into the news channel business internationally. In 1991, under the direction of Tom McGrath, the then-president of Time-Warner International Broadcasting, the company developed a strategy for Austria, Germany, and the German-speaking areas of Switzerland.

One of McGrath's pet projects was a German-language 24-hour news channel. McGrath secured the last available transponder on the Kopernikus satellite and secured several terrestrial television licenses for transmission of what would become n-tv. McGrath then recruited several German companies including the Otto Group and Apax Partners as partners, and recruited Karl Kuhlo, an experienced German broadcaster, as the CEO.

The station started broadcasting on 30 November 1992, headquartered in Berlin. In doing so, it became the first German-language news channel. In 1994, CNN bought 27.5% of the company, and later increased its share to 50%.

In 2004, the station's headquarters were moved to Cologne, where other RTL stations are based.

RTL Group took full control of n-tv in 2006, having acquired half the company in 2002.

In September 2010, n-tv moved to the Rheinhallen media center in Cologne-Deutz, where all of RTL's TV operations in Germany are based.

n-tv gained a new visual identity, a new logo and graphics package from 1 September 2017. Another sister channel, RTL was also rebranded.