RTP Açores is a Portuguese free-to-air regional television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP) in the Autonomous Region of the Azores. It began broadcasting on 10 August 1975 from its studios in Ponta Delgada. Since late 2017, it broadcasts from its current premises, alongside RDP Açores. The line-up consists of local programming, relays of RTP3 and reruns of programming from the mainland channels.

In 1964, a television coverage project for the Azores appeared, under the hands of RTP engineer João Paz. However, due to supposed lack of money at RTP, the project was halted.

In 1975, during the transformative phase of Portugal's transition from Estado Novo regime to Third Portuguese Republic, Ramalho Eanes, then president of the administrative council at RTP (and president of Portugal from 1976 to 1986) solicited a dossier already published by João Paz on the future of regional broadcasting, then referred to as RTP-Açores. After studying the process, its implications and conditions, Ramalho Eanes informed António Borges Coutinho that this project would be implemented swiftly.

Along with Sousa Gomes and Sidónio Paes, the administrative council saw the public station in the Azores: "...as to contribute to the eradication of illiteracy...an instrument for education and culture...an instrument to promote cultural democracy...a vehicle that contributed to a better knowledge for all citizens...a means to appeal to unity and social responsibility for all...and a contribution that [served] positive collaboration in the transition and institutionalization of democracy".

Instability at the national/regional levels and the move towards more autonomy and independence meant that RTP's motives were met with anxiety and distrust, the national broadcaster at that time being a tool of the Armed Forces Movement (MFA). In the streets of Ponta Delgada, for example, local cultural brigades were already trying to mould values and guide the transformation towards democracy.

Following the Carnation Revolution, the move towards a decentralized constitution, with an autonomous status for regional authorities, the island of São Miguel in the archipelago of the Azores, was chosen for the broadcasting centre. Local news and entertainment was broadcast from its first studios in a building in the outskirts of the urban area of Ponta Delgada, in the locality of São Gonçalo. Transmitters were installed at Serra da Barrosa and its provisional studio was used for the Telescola project from the mainland, which had reached the Azores before 1974.

The station broadcast on channel 7 from the Pico da Barrosã transmitter and channel 9 from Santa Bárbara. Additional relays at launch time were located at Ajuda (channel 11), Cume (channel 4), Pico (channel 5), Pico Alto (channel 10) and Salto do Cavalo (channel 11). Television was not new to the Azores, as the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service operated a TV station at the Lajes Air Base (CSL-TV, channel 8) in the NTSC standard since 1954.

Its first director was Fernando Balsinha, who entered RTP in 1973. When his stint at RTP Açores ended, he returned to Lisbon, working for its news department, being the foreign relations head at the time of his death in 2003. The station was already delivering test broadcasts days ahead of the 10 August launch.