Wanian Broadcasting Corporation
The Wanian Broadcasting Corporation (WBC) is Wa's royal media. It was founded in 1948 as Broadcasting Services of the Phinean Kingdom of Wa and is funded directly by the royal houses.
History[edit | edit source]
Founding[edit | edit source]
Radio was given by the Flarlandians in 1946, who installed a station that relayed Voice of Flarland's programming to the sovereign country. Using Flarlandian know-how, the Wanian Royal Houses decided to create the Broadcasting Services of the Phinean Kingdom of Wa (BSPKW) in 1947.
Golden age of radio[edit | edit source]
Radio was an important part of the development of Wa during its first thirty-five years. The royalists were able to change the order of the broadcaster if there were enough gains. By 1955, radio was broadcasting for six hours a day - a far cry from the two hours of 1947.
New charter and name change[edit | edit source]
A Royal Charter in 1974 led to the renaming of BSPKW to the "less complicated" name of WBC. The same charter also said that the broadcaster should stop using "complicated" terms live on air in order to attract a wider audience. This was true especially when television was on the verge of being introduced and viewers thought that the service was going to be "sub-par".
Jump into television[edit | edit source]
BSPKW/WBC was numerous problems regarding the introduction of a television service. Many people were skeptical of its introduction, believing that it would hurt cultural norms. Eventually, under the BSPKW legislation, it was allowed to operated a television service in 1976, yet it was delayed numerous times.
In September 1981, WBC was allowed to operate a television service. Transmitters were installed in the Phinean sub-kingdom, followed by another transmitter in Warren in 1985 for a separate television service, TV Warren, whose service commenced later, in August 1984. WBC's main service for Phineas commenced in December 1982.
WBC initially provided four hours of programming a day, initially from 19:00 to 23:00, but owing to numerous issues with the populace, the hours were adjusted from 18:00 to 22:00. As part of a protocol, three quarters of the weekly schedule had to be in English and the rest in Wanian.
WBC relied on an excess of imports at first, and this defined WBC for roughly thirty years until the appearance of Wa Media, 6NET and Disney.
New services[edit | edit source]
The success of Radio 4 led to the launch of a Wanian-English service, TV2, in 1990. The service was to broadcast 80% of its programming in Wanian and the rest, usually reserved to pre-closedown slots, was cultural programming in English. OCV (Organized Community Values) followed in August 1993. It was an English-language entertainment channel targeting people of various ethnic backgrounds at first, by broadcasting, i.e. programming of interest to blacks (Family Matters, for example) or South Sondrians (Bollywood films). Eventually it became a conventional entertainment channel a few years later. TV Warren shut down in 1994, by then viewers already received TV1 and TV2 as TV Warren was already a relayer of OCV, and there was little local content being produced.
The next hurdle was the breaking of its monopoly.
Operations[edit | edit source]
Radio[edit | edit source]
- Radio 1
- Radio 2
- Wanian-language service
Television[edit | edit source]
- WBC 1
- WBC 2
- Wanian-language service