Freedom Televīzija

Freedom Televīzija was an Ashtalaian "free speech" television channel that underwent through a series of management changes during its run. The channel primarily tackled freedom of speech - initially to alleviate Flarland-Ashtalaia tensions before eventually becoming "the hidden channel". Its claims to fame all came from forfeitures from the Ashtalaian government as they all came from violations of the Ashtalaian media law.

After pleading to broadcast two shootings in their entirety (despite not showing a second of them), the channel entered judicial intervention on March 16, 2019 and had its equipment and social media platforms confiscated on March 30.

History

When the Ashtalaian government proceeded to the "cleansing" of two nationwide multiplexes containing Flarlandian channel relays, the slots where these channels were broadcast were all auctioned off. The first channel to bid for a license was Anthony Ridkin, a media activist, who wanted to "expose the truth behind such a removal". The license would end up becoming Freedom TV, but didn't start in 2014 as initially planned.

After successive revisions to put the bid on standby, Freedom TV started broadcasting on August 17, 2016. The broadcast of the channel opened with a small violation of the media rule, as the channel's owners were fond of the pre-1974 regime, and opened with a video of the pre-1990 Ashtalaian anthem. Initially the channel broadcast two hours a day, with just one show on the schedule, similar to InfoWars but focusing on the Flarlandian-Ashtalaian conflict.

Things accelerated following the 2016 presidential elections in both countries, won by anti-Ashtalaian candidate Parker Scott on the Flarlandian side and anti-Flarlandian candidate Žygis Bulkys on the Ashtalaian side. Instead of broadcasting the elections, the channel broadcast a remix of a song from the Ashtalaian Armed Forces on loop accompanied by images of "Ashtalaian lands under Flarlandian control". The channel had no license to broadcast news programs and, as such, was refrained from showing live electoral coverage, as the independent media became more suspicious about Freedom TV's activities.

Post-election period and political crisis

Freedom TV managed to increase its purpotedly limited viewership base of about 1000 to 20000 in the wake of the elections, with more and more people boycotting state-run media, leading to a rise in nationalism and, especially, populism. The rise of the neo-Nationalist parties and Freedom TV contributed to an increasingly anti-Flarlandian sentiment, to an extent where Freedom TV was allowed to produce videos against Flarland, promoted the burning of Flarlandian flags and also the Flarlandian constitution. Freedom TV now ran from 18:00 to 00:00. Its main program now ran from 20:00 to 22:00. Flarlandian channel FBC 3 started to broadcast a compilation of subtitled Freedom TV footage (in a similar way to MUMRI-TV's YouTube channel) under the name "What Thaks Watch". The channel also started to show more nationalistic propaganda from the pre-1974 era and conducted street interviews where "2 in every 4 Ashtalaians deserve a grandiose country again".

The height of the first phase of Freedom TV was in the summer of 2017, when a host entered a restaurant that was full of Flarlandians and uttered the phrase "Flarland for the Flarlandians, Ashtalaia for the Ashtalaians". This practically caused a storm that led to a political crisis between both countries. After the president of Ashtalaia was impeached a similar controvery involving a Hayastelari child with Nazi clothing, allegedly sold by people linked to Freedom TV, cost the license of a Hayastelari kids channel operated by the HRT. Authorities were forced to face massive forfeitures and most of its political programming got pulled off YouTube, forcing them to move to VIDME (not all programs were published because the staff was forbidden from doing internet transactions and free users only posted up to 300MB of content a week). Following VIDME's shutdown two months later they moved to BitChute, where some of its archives are still available.

Back to basics

With a new president and government, Freedom TV was limited to launch levels of capacity. Two hours every evening, 20:00 to 22:00, and where the primetime show once was now sat third-party programming. In the wake of legislative elections, Freedom TV started to make new programming, they were all uploaded to BitChute.

Shootings, call for failed action and shutdown

Following shootings in Canterbury and Kotaro, on the day of the shootings, Freedom TV announced that they were going to read the manifestos and air the videos. Before all of that was about to happen, the Ashtalaian Radio and Television Council announced a massive, irreversible forfeiture. The following day, the channel entered a two-week period of judicial intervention. On March 17 an ART 3 satirical program started with an insult to how "Freedom TV ruined freedom" and saying "Are your parents dead? If so, I'll piss on their graves!". The channel gained a new web nickname, "Chuj TV". During judicial intervention, the channel incited for a shooting of Flarlandians in Ashtalaian territory, including a manifesto about "stolen Hayastelari lands", ultimately bringing back the channel's initial goal, but that failed to achieve, as the government thought that the channel was inciting violence. Ashtalaian 4chan boards were dedicated to "the death of television's anonymous chan board". The government in an act of revenge temporarily shut down the boards, but were later reopened, but due to the high concentration of "neo-Nazi conspiracy theory lunatics who want to request for a return of Freedom TV's license", it was later banned.

The channel's last broadcast was on March 30 at 21:30. The last words, oddly enough, were in English: "FREEDOM NEVER DIES". After that the police confiscated all equipment and the frequencies were auctioned again. Freedom TV broadcast in standard definition throughout its run.

Aftermath

An ART series is set to premiere in late 2020 featuring a fictionalized version of Freedom, known as Liberty, and is responsible for a fictional invasion of Flarland by Ashtalaian lunatics. The series was anounced in the first anniversary of the channel's shutdown but has already garnered massive controversy amongst network executives.