Flarlandian Broadcasting Corporation

The Flarlandian Broadcasting Corporation is the state-owned public broadcaster of Flarland, founded in 1923. In recent years, it has become a common target for "behaving like a private company", having deteriorated the quality of its programming and went through several waves of budget cuts.
The FBC is a state-owned corporation funded by television advertising revenues, government grants, and the broadcasting contribution tax, which is incorporated in electricity bills.
The FBC is headquartered in Wembley, specifically at the Radio and Television House, since 2004. It also operates a number of bureaus in other provincial capitals, providing regional-level television news.
==History==
===1922-1945===
The Flarlandian Broadcasting Corporation was set up in 1922 as Radio Wembley, also known as Radio 1WY, the first radio station in the country. It started off as an emulation of the first radio services set up by the Nashlandian Radio Company, the progenitor of the current corporation. The government gave the following laws to Radio Wembley:
*the establishment of a station for purposes of broadcasting,
*the use of a station for purposes of broadcasting,
*the installing of a transmitter or receiver, and the use of a transmitter or receiver.
Further stations were set up through 1925: Radio Waverly, Radio Whitecastle and Radio Darwin. These four stations were the basis of the new network, known as Radio Flarland. At the time, the FBC started publishing the Radio Times, which was privatized in 2002.
In 1927, the government decided to nationalize Radio Flarland and it became the non-commercial Flarlandian Broadcasting Corporation, though there was pressure from advertisers over the ban, which lasted until 1945. Commercial radio wasn't reinstated until 1932, when IBC started radio broadcasts and, not too soon afterwards, the University of Wembley station followed suit in protest.
===1945-1990===
The golden age of the FBC started in 1945, when the war ended. The advertising ban was lifted, but was constrained to the National Program. As a countermeasure, the Regional Program was ailing and was given over to the Arts Program. The National Program would still opt-out to refional broadcasts at least twice a day. The National Program was renamed Home Service, the Arts Program later became the Arts Service.
Television broadcasts started on October 1st, 1950. The FBC, although it was the first to begin broadcasting, wasn't the first to get a license, as the University of Wembley got an application a few years earlier, due to their television experiments.
A third radio station, the Light Program, based on the NBS Light Programme, launched in 1952. The new scheme for FBC's radio operations was HAL, after the initials of each station: Home, Arts and Light.
Television programs for schools started in 1957.
The second channel started operations in October 1959, as a sort-of adaptation of the Arts Program. It was the second country in the world where the public broadcaster opened a second channel, ten months after Orience did. At the same time the FBC started experimental FM broadcasts.
In the early 60s, the Eurectivision network spread to Flarland, meaning that it could now take part in the Eurectivision Song Contest and broadcast other live events using the network. It was also one of the many broadcasters that accepted the challenging task of airing the Our World event in 1967, which tested the limits of satellite television.
In 1968, color transmissions started.
The social uprising in 1974 and the rapid rise and fall of pro-Soviet policymakers damaged the FBC's reputation. On the contrary, the FBC was finally allowed to stop its internal censorship practices imposed in the 1950s.
Teletext services opened in 1976, as one of the first countries in the world to introduce it. The FBC was really interested in expanding its scope of contents by looking at innovations in other countries.
By the mid-80s, FBC Television was at its apex. For the first time in about 35 years of television, local content exceeded 50% of the values and was also becoming a large exporter of content. There were also plans for the third FBC channel, using an entirely UHF network, materialized in 1990.
===1990-2004===
In 1990, the FBC launched FBC 3 on the UHF band and FBC Radio 5 as an all-news service. FBC Radio 3 dropped the contemporary hits format in favor of underrated music.
Between 1992 and 1994, FBC Radio underwent a series of reforms. This implied a ban of all commercial advertising from Radios 2 and 4 due to their highbrow nature.
The FBC launched itself on the web in 1995 (after a two-year experiment known as FBCNC, the FBC Networking Club) and quickly started offering RealAudio streams of all radio stations. In 1998, Six, Flarland's first web radio station, started broadcasting.
At the same time, the FBC started investing in the rising digital technologies by launching new themed channels on cable and satellite. Some of these channels failed. It was also involved in the launches of both DTT and DAB, in 1998 and 2002 respectively.
In 2003, the FBC announced a new corporate reform. The FBC was to be restructured into a new corporate holding. This eventually culminated into a rebrand.
===2004-2015===
A new identity was unveiled at 7pm on March 31, 2004. The logo, known as "the fish" after its shape, represents the crossroads of Flarland, the path to modernity through technological innovation and, subliminally, the merpeople, considering that the logo is based on the scales of the tail of a merperson if rotated correctly. It also represents the country as itself. On the same day, the FBC moved to new facilities at Radio and Television House, the old facilities for FBC Radio and FBC Television were separate.
HD broadcasts started in May 2006. In the same year, FBC Mobile launched. The service shut down in 2012. Between 2005 and 2014, it also provided services on high-speed trains operated by Flarlandian Railways, it was later superseded by FR's own service.
In 2012, the FBC entered an unprecedented crisis on its television operations. There were plans to shut down four FBC channels, FBC 3, FBC Comedy, FBC Arts and FBC Encore. Plans to shut down Radio 3 and Radio 4 were underway, with the existing Radio 5 becoming Radio 3, but these never came into fruition. The FBC started making budget cuts all over the services, initially slashing off entire broadcast hours. Out of the four channels that were supposed to shut down, FBC Comedy managed to do so, as the FBC wanted to use the channel's physical frequency for a new service, D.
===2015-present===
The FBC rebranded all channels between October 2015 and November 2016. During this period, the FBC News Channel became FBC NC, CFBC became a commercial-free service (main rival K-Zone benefitted and gained new viewers) and started a new ideological crisis which is still present at the FBC. Khyber Waterman had left Radio 3 in anger in June 2016 to concentrate on UW Radio Active because he couldn't stand the growing "commercialization" of Radio 3 and the FBC, in early 2017, said that Radios 4 and 5 were loss-making. The solution was to marge Radio 1 and Radio 4's contents into Radio 4 and shut down Radio 5, moving the format over to Radio 1 and cede the frequencies to University of Wembley Broadcasting for their news service, RN News. It is postulated that, through these measures, the goverbment had saved up to $100 million.
Six shut down in September 2016 in order to launch CFBC Radio. There are currently plans to merge FBC Arts and FBC Knowledge, but a complete ban on commercial advertising is not on the plans.
The FBC made experimental 4K broadcasts during Eurecti 2016.
On January 6, 2021, in line with pro-Parker Scott protests and regarding the rise of populism in Flarland, the FBC was stormed from 18:22 to around 19:05 local time, with its operations temporarily put off air. Only the outside of the FBC complex was damaged, as well as some of its OB trucks within the Wembley region.
The FBC has been at the center of controversies since then due to biases in favor of certain movements, causing its reputation to be heavily damaged.
==Operations==
===Radio===
*FBC Radio 1
*FBC Radio 2
*FBC Radio 3
*FBC Radio 4
*CFBC Radio
===Television===
*FBC 1: general entertainment channel
*FBC 2: complementary channel
*FBC 3: youth channel
*FBC NC: news channel
*CFBC: kids channel
*FBC Junior: pre-school channel
*FBC Knowledge: documentary channel
*FBC Arts: highbrow channel
*FBC Encore: broadcasts old local and international shows
*FBC Sports: online network of sports channels. If the Flarlandian government approves, FBC Sports will become a linear channel, with the web channels serving as online overflow. The physical slot will either replace FBC Arts or FBC Knowledge and the two "victims" will be merged.
===Former===
*FBC Radio 5: all-news station. Shut down in 2017 after a revision and resulted in the move of all content to FBC Radio 1. Terrestrial frequencies given over to RN News.
*FBC Comedy: shut down in 2012 due to low ratings.
*Radio Times: sold to Denominator Media in 2002.
==Controversies==
===FBC Crisis===
The period since 2012 in which the FBC experienced a slow deterioration is nicknamed by independent journalists as the FBC Crisis. The crisis apparently aggravated in 2015. The crisis is attributed to austerity measures by the government in order to cut down on FBC operations.
===Mock emergency incidents of November 2017===
On the morning of November 20th, 2017, FBC 1 and FBC NC interrupted their programming out of nowhere for a mock emergency broadcast. The broadcast said that the Flarlandian government was evacuating all Flarlandians within the course of the next twenty-four hours due to an attack from the Ashtalaians. However, it was later revealed that it was a hoax, even with Ashtalaia re-establishing diplomatical relations with Flarland.
The supposed broadcast triggered a mass reaction from the Flarlandian internet community, believing it to be real. A few hours later, it was revealed that the hoax was planned by an anti-Flarlandian activist who invaded the infrastructure of the FBC.
Later, on the morning of November 24th, a new emergency broadcast interrupted most FBC channels: this time it was about an infection at the FBC. After two minutes, the supposed broadcast changed to a shot of the FBC Television control room where a discussion was heard, where it was later revealed that it was a new hoax, as the discussion suggested. This time it was made by a Flarlandian prankster who had his internet channels blocked, and was supposed to have an interview on an FBC Television program, but was pulled due to the scam.
===Censorship during watershed hours===
The FBC has also banned swearing from local television productions during the watershed hours (after 9pm), a practice that was noticed beginning in the late 2000s. The sort-of "ban" also includes radio. Many people believe that with these censors, the FBC is behaving more like a "private corporation".
===Bias===
==Organization==
===Chairmen of the Board===
*Charles Preston, 2002-2008
*Barry Atkinson, 2008-2012
*Richard Parker, 2012-2015
*Stuart Ross, 2015-present