Sri British Television

Sri British Television (SBTV) was a Sri British government-run television channel, yet independent of the Sri British Broadcasting Corporation.

History

Predecessors

Sri Britain did not have an official television channel until 2008. From 1968 to 1994, ITK Television was the de facto broadcaster of Sri Britain, even though it was broadcasting from a nearby Reitannan military base outside of Sri British soil. On the other hand, the Michillian armed forces operated a separate service from 1989, as a branch of MFN television, operating from the Michillian base within the country.

Either way, the television services run by the armed forces of its neighbours was plagued because, although the channels targeted Sri British audiences, they weren't controlled by the government, and that they weren't authorized by legislation to broadcast ethnic news programs in Sinhala and Māori. In 1994, ITK TV shut down and was later replaced by a relay of RBC International. The Reitannan government shut it down because of numerous licensing issues, especially since, at this point, ITK had the same programming as MFN. Meanwhile, the newly-founded SBBC struggled to operate a television service without asking either broadcaster on either side of the border and the promise of a new television service in Sri Britain fell through.

In April 2002, an experimental television service was started by Michillian NGOs and the AoN, but shut down after a few weeks due to lack of finance, justified by retransmission fees to carry the 2002 Eurectivision Song Contest, held in Vydoria. Television sets could legally pick up RBC International, MBC International and two MFN channels in military bases, but then again, the need for a truly local television service arose.

2008

Sri British Television started operating on March 3rd, 2008. Unlike other television channels that operated using the community band service (known locally as Comband), SBTV was entirely free to air, broadcasting on analog (UHF channel 37 Keswitch, same frequency that carried ITK and the 2002 Sri British television service) and digital. This marked the coming of age for Sri British television, although it was badly timed with the country's 40th anniversary. The channel ran for about two hours a day, yet as the months passed, broadcast hours grew and the channel was made available on Comband. It joined the EBU (as BSB, later as SBTV in 2009) in September 2008, allowing it to participate in the ESC for the first time.

The channel relied on excessive amounts of local content and a handful of foreign shows: New Michillian crime series Street Legal, pre-school shows from the MBC and a handful of cheap filler programming from Northulia's World Wide Entertainment (now Switch International). In an initial phase programming ran between 5pm and 10pm.

SBTV broadcast selected Eurecti 2008 matches, the Tour d'Étienne and the 2008 Kaijing Summer Olympics.

2009

SBTV was broadcasting from 4pm to midnight on weekdays and from noon to midnight on weekends. Sri Britain took part in its first Eurectivision in May 2009 in Alavia, yet the song didn't get past the semi-finals.

SBTV produced its first series, Peculiar, in June 2009. It ran for a season of thirteen episodes to great acclaim.

For the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Pro Tect, the NABC supplied them with the then-new documentary "Killing Pro Tect: The 1989 Triumph".

2010

SBTV broadcast the 2010 Winter Olympic Games from Keithland, the first featuring Sri British athletes, and the 2010 World Cup in Vera Cruz. In the run up to the World Cup, SBTV broadcast a program called The Sri British Dream, featuring the failures of the Sri British national football team in the previous year during UEFA's qualifiers for the World Cup.

November saw Sri Britain's first talent show, Sri Britain Song and Dance, based loosely on Strictly Come Dancing and Idols.

2011

In February, SBTV tested the waters of homemade daytime television with a morning program, Sri Britain Today, it failed and got its 90-minute slot slashed to 30 minutes in April before being cancelled as part of a last-minute decision days before the Nashlandian Royal Wedding at the end of the month.

Shutdown

Sri British Television announced a surprise shutdown on the morning of April 13th, 2016, after over eight years on air. The reason why SBTV shut down was because SBTV couldn't stand the constant criticism against come personalities and quietly went off-air. SBTV's admins said that they wouldn't be setting up an entirely new channel, and that such honor would be passed to new enterprises. In late May, the SBBC launched a television service, using SBTV equipment, and didn't claim itself as the successor of SBTV.