Headline Network

The Headline Network (legal name: Headline Television Network) was a Bensonian television network that was founded in Grand Rapids on 5 June 1983 by the Omdalian-Bensonian journalist and businessman Adolf Block. The network remained on the air until 10 May 1999. It was part of Block Group, which published the magazine Headline by Block Publishing, its publishing division; the television network was named after the magazine.
The channel was plagued throughout much of its history for constant advertising problems, instability in affiliates, strikes and debt issues, most of them stemming from a mistake that happened upon signing on in 1983.
In May 1999, partners Stuart Dellenham and Marcus Oates (known as InterTV Group) bought the licenses of Headline's O&O's, moved the headquarters to Illarani, and changed the network's name to Today TV.
In recent years illegal television channels have been using the Headline name, but have unrelated programming.
==History==
===Predecessors===
The network was set up on part of the shutdown of Inca Television in 1980 and Supreme Television one decade earlier. On July 23, 1980, five days after the last Inca stations shut down, the federal government announced that it would issue licenses for new television networks for the Block Publishing House and the Sangster Saints media groups. Block was popular through its groundbreaking newspaper The Bensonian Headline and subsequent acquisition of the Bensonian Match weekly magazine. The owners of both groups signed the licenses on August 19, 1981, the same day Sangster Saints' NTS went on air.
Headline bought five licenses pertaining to defunct television stations: Supreme TV Grand Rapids, Inca TV Galveston, TV West, Punku Television and NRC TV. Eventually it bought an independent station in Queensland, who refused to affiliate to NTS, and later, a station in the Southern state, on channel 5. These seven stations would eventually become the backbone of the network, and was the reason why its logo was an H made out of seven circles.
In January 1982, the upcoming Headline Network had ivested US$35 million in equipment for five of the seven stations in international equipment, from Hopeland, Orience and the United States. It was initially scheduled that the launch was scheduled to be between September and November 1982. With regards to the schedule, it was supposed to target the upper class, which, upon orders made by the network managers, was the same class that had access to a television set when television broadcasts were making their first steps. Eventually the network's launch was delayed a few more times - first March, then June 5.
===Launch===
On June 5, 1983, at 7pm, the network went live on air. The launch date was selected because it would have a full week of operations ahead in the following day. Already from the onset of the network, there was a series of innovations: an eight-second countdown sponsored by Benpetro preceded the network's innaugural speech. However, it was plagued by technical issues, as the sound was lost for the first few seconds. This was followed by the daily opening and closing sequence, featuring the iconic logo flying over Bensonian landscapes and ended with the logo settling on the network's headquarters. The innaugural show, The Magical World of Headline TV went on air, followed by Close Encounters of the Third Kind - as a network television premiere. The network paid 800.000 US dollars to obtain it.
===Towards a more competitive network===
The effects of Headline's launch night lead to an increase in advertising revenue, as Burton's network descended into a regional service. The high technical and scheduling quality of the network lead to the adoption of their slogan, World-Class Television, in reference to the equipment and programming from abroad.
In 1984, Headline was one of the two networks that heavily supported the Direct Elections Now campaign, by showing a number of political meetings. Still, the network's ambitions for the upper class were still standing. The network premiered FMTV, Bensonia's first music video show, and produced its first miniseries in August. However, this structure wasn't working and the network tried so hard to diversify its targets. It made a co-production with the Michillian Broadcasting Corporation called New Generations of Migrants.
Two years into the network's existence, the money wasted by the network, including a historical super-production in association with Television North Arlesbury, led to an unprecedented debt for the "upper class network", as it was commonly nicknamed in its early years. The production of Type B soaps divided the viewers: some were successful, others weren't. In an attempt to increase profitability, it decided to produce more comedy shows in order to appeal to a wider range of demographics.
In 1986, Passionate managed to become a ratings success in Bensonia. According to an interview to The Bensonian Times, the historical series had a budget of 25,000,000$ and managed to score "around 25 to 27%" in Galveston, 40% in Saint Helen and 35% in Wide Horizon. However, it was the stealth acquisition of the 1986 World Cup in Huasco (where Bensonia managed to qualify) that led to an increase in its internal debt. Headline proceeded to sell some of its soaps to the Michillies and North Arlesbury, a fact that was celebrated at the company.
Leah Summer left Headline to host The Leah Show on SBC in the same year. As compensation, Headline looked after famous clown entertainers to front their kids shows.
In July 1987, 100 employees lost their jobs due to a new crisis at the network. Its primetime line of programming was deactivated and decided to enter the stock market under a value of US$130,000,000. In spite of the debt, Headline became Bensonia's second-largest network, behind SBC.
In June 1988, a football match between Galveston Gymnasium and Lord Benson FC (the Galveston Derby) managed to earn a historical nationwide high of 63% - the first for the network. SBC, now considered to be the "soccer expert", squeezed in with a mere 23%.
In 1989, Headline decided to bring forth a number of staff from other networks in order to alleviate its crisis. At the time, it was considered that Headline would "heal wounds" by hiring well-trained members of other networks.
===SBC's defeat===
March 1990 led to a new scheduling structure at Headline. This was marked by a move to the new headquarters at Green World in the Grand Rapids central business district. The crown jewel was a new soap called Baccanal, shown at a 10pm slot. Unfortunately for Headline, the soap was set to premiere on March 26, a Monday, and it would directly compete against Hot Screen. Headline decided to delay the premiere to March 27 and use the initial March 26 date for a behind-the-scenes special on it. Unexpectedly, Baccanal became the most-popular soap on the network, due to its somewhat strong adult themes that were deemed to be taboo at the time, but were ceasing to be as a result of the liberalization of the country during the Watson Plan. The network, usually in second place, frequently won SBC, to an extent that a competition with The Tycoon seemed inevitable. It also broadcast the 1990 World Cup in Iteria, although Bensonia did not qualify.
Headline was now a truly national network, with stations in all state capitals, the federal district and some "regional areas". It also acquired the rights to The Bold and the Beautiful, until it lost the rights to NTS in 1993.
===First signs of crisis===
The network returns to the Block family in 1993. On March 15 at 14:35, the Galveston station put up a slide telling that they were on strike due to the lack of payments of the preceding three months. The channel went off air at 15:15 and resumed at 19:40 with a relay of the Grand Rapids station. As a consequence, Headline decided to add a block wordmark (all in lowercase) as a "lucky amulet" on its IDs. As a sign of its crisis, many of its regional affiliates left Headline in favor of other networks, like ETV, Burton and NTS.
In 1994, a new soap, Masters of the Airwaves, debuted on the network. During the period of the World Cup in the United States - where Bensonia did qualify again, but Headline did not have the money to carry it - it had to broadcast all episodes from episode one when matches were being played outside of the premiere slot.
===Renaissance===
The prior crisis of 1993 had been and gone in 1995. The network entered its renaissance period by airing soaps, cartoons, newscasts, sporting events and renting slots to the Image Group (infomercials) and local pentecostal denominations like Solving Church (not coincidentally its future owner) and the United International Church.
In order to retain its second place in the ratings game, Headline decided to include nudity in its primetime and overnight programming as an effort to make it more akin to the lower class, similarly to what NTS had done with Here and Now.
Adolf Block died on November 17, 1995. Family members and relatives were now the owners of the network.
In 1996, Headline screened National Kid and Ultraman - both shows were popular in prior decades - and new animes: Sailor Moon, Shurato and Samurai Warriors.
In July, Headline presented a new series of IDs where famous Bensonian artists painted a canvas featuring the seven circles that made up its logo. The network gained huge successes around late 1996 and early 1997.
===Crisis and swindle===
Main article: Bankruptcy of the Headline Network
Bensonia had been living in economical instability since October 1997. 1998 led to the first steps of the network's largest crisis yet - and the one that would eventually lead to its future shutdown. In March 1998, Headline decided to bring back the "three editions a day" format of its newscast and make its news operation more prominent on the network. Restructuring of its news operation revealed the initial effects, even though they did not cool the effect.
For the Christmas season of 1997, the network supported the Happy Christmas campaign from Rebirth in Christ, a Pentecostal denomination. This was the beginning of the network's relations with the sect.
Headline did buy the rights to the 1998 World Cup in Northulia, pooled between it, SBC and NTS. While it did get healthy ratings, one of the matches scored somewhat lower ratings. This was due to Headline's lack of expertise in sports broadcasts, something mastered by the networks it pooled prior World Cups with, especially SBC, who broadcast all World Cups since 1990.
The worse was yet to come. Swindle (eventually the last soap opera on the network) premiered in August 1998. Based on the work of Stuart Wendell and due to the extra advertising it got from his new book, Her Name is Veronica, the soap failed miserably and got cancelled halfway.
On the morning of January 1, 1999, the station signed on with its station ID lacking the word Block. The reason given was the deal hatched with the New Bensonian Gospel Church (NBGC).
===Shutdown===
On May 8, 1999, a meeting is called regarding the future of the network. On the following day, it was announced that TheTV would buy the licenses.
On May 10, Headline Network's logo was displayed on screen for the final time, with the ID being followed by the sign-on and sign-off sequence played one last time. The reason for this "shutdown" was the transfer of sovereignty of the five licenses, leading to a seven-day period where the five O&Os were broadcasting nothing.
InterTV started taking control of the network on May 17, without a name.
==Branding==
The logo used during the entirety of the network's existence was the letter H made out of seven circles, representing the five O&Os and the two affiliates.
===Slogans===
==Programming==
===Tokusatsu===
The network gained national recognition due to its broadcast of Oriencian tokusatsu series, live-action series featuring excessive use of special effects. Its success was enormous that eventually crossed to Hopeland and Great Giana. Some of these series were even broadcast during prime time.
Jaspion was the first tokusatsu to air on the network. The reason why it aired on Headline was due to a store called Orience Entertainment in Grand Rapids, that collected tapes of Oriencian television series for the diaspora. In the late 80s, Jaspion tapes became successful thus making the store crowded, meaning that the owner of Orience Video and the licensee of the series had to search for dubbing facilities in Hopeland and a television channel in Bensonia. SBC wasn't interested, NTS didn't find it fitting. Headline approved Jaspion, and more television series of the genre as well as animes were bought. The dubs were made at Offshore Productions in Albany.
===Animes===
===Sports===
Headline didn't broadcast a lot of live sporting events. During its lifespan it covered the 1984 Olympics and the 1986 World Cup.