Independent Broadcasting System

IBS Logo

IBS (Independent Broadcasting System) is a Hopelandian English-language commercial television network that is a flagship property of IBS Corporation. It competes with the remaining Big Four networks: NBN, UBS and MTN. It also owns the OK Network (created from the ashes of TotalAccess and XTN) and takes part in the Hispanic joint-venture networks Antena Latina and TVMax, shared with NBN. It is also the most-watched network, akin to CBS.

IBS is sometimes referred to as the Eye Network, in reference to the company's corporate symbol, in use since 1996. IBS operates one television station in all 54 media markets, 16 of which are O&Os, 4 of which are part of a sub-network in Rhetundo Island and the Banks, RTN.

History

1928-1948

IBS started as a radio network in 1928. At the time, IBS had owned five radio stations. IBS took over an advantage from its competitors and became a radio powerhouse later on. Before IBS launched, radio in Hopeland was all under independent control. The five stations that had a "sphere of influence" in neighboring areas led to the creation of a microwave radio network on IBS's behalf.

1948-1965

IBS started television operations in Albany in 1948 in Albany and in Palmerston in 1949. Due to a license freeze, IBS had a monopoly over television transmissions until 1952. This had led to a slight dominance on Hopelandian television when the freeze ended. HWIR was the first television station to begin operations south of the Equator, and also the first in South Sierra.

IBS was notorious for producing Hopeland's first regular television series, a filmed series called Pitcairn Avenue, in 1949. Due to its hegemony in the earliest phase of Hopelandian television, the network managed to get significant earnings when few television sets were being sold in the country. By 1953, IBS was broadcasting nationwide, due to the overwhelming responses of the new licenses.

IBS bought the studios of the former Zircon Television Network in 1958.

1965-1981

Richard Ryles bought IBS from its former owner, Parker Stevenson, and decided to concoct a new schedule created in order to bring it back to first place, whom it lost to UBS in 1960. By then, IBS started producing color programming regularly, after experimenting in 1962. It broadcast the Albany State play-offs in its entirety in color on stations of the network that had were able to afford and made heavy profits by exporting two of its highest-viewed series at the time, both in color: Alleyways of Love (1965-1968) and the controversial sitcom Generation Gap (1965-1974). Generation Gap was problematic for Sierran standards at first, but if it wasn't for the showing of a few episodes to CBS executives, a show like All in the Family wouldn't exist and become a part of television history.

Programming

News and current affairs

• IBS This Morning
• IBS Evening News
• The 11:30
• Sunday Morning News

Sports

• Hopelandian Baseball League
• UEFA Champions League (since 2021, one match a week, rest on IBS+ and the IBS Sports Network)
• Hopelandian Basketball Federation
  • HBF Got Game

Game shows

• The Price is Right
• The Challenge

Talent shows

• Hopeland's Best

Imported shows

• NCIS
• Criminal Minds
• NCIS: Los Rios
• Young Sheldon
• Seal Team

Local

• Half and Half (comedy)

Kids

Branded as Qoox on IBS, partial simulcast on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

• [HLD] Hype Team
• [USS] Knight Squad
• Looped
• SpongeBob SquarePants

Former programming

• [KEI] Tropical Heat
• [USS] Scorpion (2014-2018)
• [USS] The Big Bang Theory (2007-2019)
• Clarence
• The Fairly OddParents
• Neighbours (moved to the OK Network in 2021)