Superstacija

Superstacija (Superstation) was an Omdalian news channel that operated between December 1, 2006 and July 29, 2012. The channel was known for its tabloid-style journalism at first, and was eventually compared to the FOX News Channel during its run.

History

Superstacija's license was awarded in March 2006. It was going to be the third news channel to launch in Omdalia, after Info TV (timesharing with TVO 3 until 2008) and Viasat's TV8.

Superstacija launched on December 1, 2006. The channel was a tabloid news channel in order to stand out from the crowd. It had its own audiovisual identity, highly reflected in its music, also cried fowl at the time.

Sale to Rihard Rysnyk

In 2007, Rihard Rysnyk, owner of the oldest commercial television channel in Omdalia, NPT, bought 50% of the stocks in August of the same year. His editorial changes started on December 1, 2007 - the first anniversary of Superstacija and the 30th of NPT - with a minor revamp of its offer and a "compromise with the truth" - in honor to NPT's beginnings as a "truthful" channel. The sale was finished on September 17 of that year.

Criticism

Initial phase

The channel's brand identity, featuring the words "SUPER STACIJA" appearing in crescendo (until 2010), accompanied with its musical themes, were cried out by many who thought that Superstacija was "parodying the news".

Depiction of Superstacija as a Nazist propaganda channel

On December 10, 2006, Rihard Napetak said in his Sunday chronicle that Superstacija "felt like a Nazist propaganda channel", comparing the opening tune of its newscasts to a Nazi march. This gained the channel some attention.

On December 18, 2006, TV6 broadcast a satire in one of its primetime shows reflecting the then-new channel, in response to Rihard Napetak's criticism days prior. The segment depicted a two-minute, Nazi version of the news (with the intro altered to read "NACHRICHTEN" and apparently presented by a Nazi Hartunger who starts off presenting the news in an agressive way before switching over to news of a merely pornographic nature. The segment was widely circulated on the Omdalian internet of the time but was heavily criticized by many people in the media sector, more so than the chronicle mentioned above.

Carriage of purported extremist content and accusations of glorifying the 1995 9A atrocities

In March 2007, the channel would organize its first annual celebration of the Omdalian victory of the Alahanian War, by showing uncut footage of the shootings committed by the Pan-Omdalian terrorist group 9A. The footage included recordings of the 9A-controlled television channel of the same name.

After a 2019/2020 decision issued by the Omdalian regulatory authorities, the founders of Superstacija had to pay a high fine for showing uncensored content. After a change to the legislation regarding the broadcast of violent material on television channels (even though Superstacija was off-air for years at the time of the change), leading to the removal of hours of footage of the channel referring to the above attacks. Whoever shows footage of the channel in public that glorifies the attacks will be jailed.