Reitannan Broadcasting Corporation
The Reitannan Broadcasting Corporation is the state-owned public corporation that of Reitanna. RBC is the largest audiovisual group in Reitanna. Since January 2010 it is financed exclusively by public subsidies.
It is also a member of the Eurectipherian Broadcasting Union.
History[edit | edit source]
Reitanna was in a peculiar situation when radio broadcasting was introduced to the country in the late 1920s: all the broadcasters that existed at the time were commercial.
A state-run broadcaster didn't exist until 1937, when the Reitannan Broadcasting Corporation (under government control) was founded in Covenant, during the Reitannan Civil War. The RBC was in favor of Francis Frank's dictatorship and was backed by the OPP (Office of Press and Propaganda).
Finally on October 6, 1939, at the conclusion of the war, the RBC issued an order subjecting private radio broadcasting to censorship by the official political party of the state, the Reitannan Traditionalist Authority, and furthermore granting RBC the exclusive right to transmit news bulletins.
In consequence, all broadcasters (private as well as public) were obliged to connect twice daily with RBC and re-transmit the government-approved news bulletins produced by the official radio channel. These bulletins, normally broadcast in the early afternoon at 14:30 and in the late evening at 22:00, were officially entitled The Spoken Report, although – given their origin in the war dispatches of 1936–39 and their continued militaristic tone – they were long popularly referred to as The Tragedy.
Although from the time of the Civil War there had already been foreign broadcasts in various languages, it was not until April 1945 that the installation of the central short wave transmitter at King's Cross (Loughborough) would provide 40 kW of broadcasting power, which was very strong for this period. Foreign broadcasting thus acquired a great importance, with transmissions directed especially at the colonies (Magano and Comara, New Reitanna and the Charisma Islands), under the RBC Empire Service.
RBC Television was established at a building of Magano Walk in Loughborough and its terrestrial television transmissions on VHF frequencies were officially launched on 28 October 1956. The next day, three evening hours a day of regular live broadcasting began from its single 250 square metres (2,700 sq ft) studio, becoming the first regular television service in Reitanna. At that time, there were only 600 receivers in operation in the city and the coverage barely reached a radius of 70 kilometres (43 mi).
An initial news bulletin, called Late News, was created within a week and a weather forecast was first aired on 2 November 1956. On 13 January 1957, the first fiction was produced, an adaptation of the 1916 one-act play Before Breakfast by Eugene O'Neill, and in February 1957, the first fiction series, the sitcom The TV Neighbors. On 15 September 1957, the evening edition of the flagship RBC Television News (now RBC News) newscast was premiered, with the afternoon edition following on 28 April 1958.
Branding[edit | edit source]
The corporation didn't adopt a concise symbol until 1964, used exclusively for the television service until 1976 and from then on, on both radio and television, the logo was designed by Gavin Strells. Strells' design was amended in 1991 with the letters becoming thinner and having more spacing. The Strells wordmark was dropped on August 31, 2008 during the RBC News on Reitanna 1.
The current logo was unveiled in June 2008 with the aim of improving RBC's performance at the long term.
Operations[edit | edit source]
Radio[edit | edit source]
- Radio Reitanna
- Radio Arts
- Radio Three
- Radio Hobart
- Radio News
- External Service
Television[edit | edit source]
- Reitanna 1
- Reitanna 2
- RBC 24 Hours
- RBC Sports
- RBC Zone
- RBC International
- RBC Entertainment (international)
- RBC Kids (international; not to be confused with RBC Zone)
Robbie[edit | edit source]
RBC is one of the few Eurectipherian broadcasting companies to use a mascot, a blue blob named Robbie (after the letters R and B in the corporation's initials). Robbie was adopted in 2008 but has always been seldomly used. RBC Zone has similar characters since the 2008 rebrand.