Television in Ashtalaia

Television was introduced to Ashtalaia in 1952.
The government held a monopoly until 1991.
==History==
===1950s===
Ashtalaian Television started its experimental broadcasts in March 1952 and started its regular broadcasts in October of the same year. At this time, the corporation was renamed Ashtalaian Radio and Television. The station used equipment from Flarland, including the 14-channel VHF frequency plan. In VIlvek, the station broadcast on channel 1, enabling a wide reach.
During the experimental phase, AT (later ART) broadcast about one hour of experimental broadcasts a day, when ART started television broadcasts, they ran from 20:30 to 22:00 nightly, with an additional period between 18:00 and 18:30 on Sundays.
ART Television under fascist rule (1952 to 1974) was known for its bizarre, nonsensical policies against political dissenters, as well as the general communist movement, which was also represented in the lack of filmed imports coming from the Soviet Union and the Walowa Pact nations.
Hayastelari Television began broadcasting in 1958. The station was underfunded despite receiving government subsidies. The station broadcast on channel 6 in Amaran. At the time, ART broadcast continually from 18:00 to 23:00, while the Hayastelari service broadcast from 19:00 to 21:30 daily.
===1960s===
The decade was marked by a golden age for television under fascism, as well as the creation of ART 2 on the VHF band, with this Ashtalaia had two or three channels, while Hayastelari Television started extending its signal to other areas with a significant Hayastelari population.
Ashtalaian Radio and Television's filmed production unit exported several television series to the other Ashtalaic countries for the first time, which caused the creation of the Ashtalaic Television Community in 1965. ART was part of the organizational structure, and provided financing for some of the series. Moreover, it provided assistance for the 1969 Vydorian series The Mysterious Castle, filmed in Vydoria with color cameras, which ART lacked at the time.
ART already had nine functional television centers in the 1960s including the local facilities of the Vilvek Television Center which was limited to a 15-minute news program which is still on air today. 18:45 to 19:00 was given to regional news, while some television centers started before 18:00 to provide regional programming. This was hampered by the start of the Television Educational Course in 1964, which lasted on ART 1 until 1988. TEC classes ran in the mornings and early afternoons until at least 16:00.
Television ownership rates were relatively low even in the 1960s, with higher concentration in the urban areas. Some villages only had one television set.
===1970s===
ART started noontime broadcasts in 1970, HTV attempted to do so but the plans were shelved due to lack of interest at the time. ART cleared the empty slots on days with TV classes during its lunch break, from 12:30 to close to 14:00, presenting cartoons, lifestyle programs, foreign television series, a news bulletin and ending with a listings program for theatrical showings.
ART and HTV were invaded by the left-wing Ashtalaian Liberty Association on April 25, 1974 and the effects of the old regime started to fade out.
During this period ART briefly showed a period of flirtation with communism, and even aired a number of television series from communist Swilatia - Captain Kloss, Four Tank-Men and a Dog, The Peasants, etc. but following a 1975 coup where the right-wing took the government, this flirtation ended.
Around this time ART and HTV decided to install the Phase Alternating Line system from Hartung, which was also being used in Flarland and Vydoria, and was on the verge of adoption in Omdalia and Jaheria. The first regular color broadcasts were held in 1976, after a period of experimentation that started in October 1974. Hayastelari Television only started regular color broadcasts in October 1978.
That same month ART reformulated its second channel becoming more autonomous, in the image of RAI in Iteria who decided to adopt separate directions for the two channels. The news service of the second channel was made independent from that of the first.
By the middle of the decade, noontime television was withdrawn due to budget concerns.
===1980s===
Recovering from a recession and struggling from a short energy crisis, in February 1981, the two ART channels and HTV decided to stop broadcasting after 23:00. ART 1 attempted to return the noontime programming slot but failed. In 1982, ART 1 started morning broadcasts on weekdays with the first edition of Good Morning Ashtalaia, which ran from 08:00 to 09:30. It ended after a year because the format was too expensive, such was the plan to begin broadcasts over the morning period.
In 1985 ART 1 restarted noontime broadcasts.
Educational programming moved to ART 2 morning slots before the channel started its schedule in 1988. At the time, ART 2 opened at 15:00.
In 1989, Hayastelari Television began daytime broadcasts, starting at 12:00.
In the second half of the 1980s, a vast number of illegal television stations, as well as satellite relays of Flarlandian channels, began to appear.
===1990s===
===2000s===
===2010s===
ATK shut down on September 14, 2010 after accusations that the channel was being managed using slush funds from Flarland and had one of its long-running collaborators assassinated on that evening. Nearly six months later on March 8, 2011, ATK's president was jailed for an "indefinite period of time" after leaking government information the previous day to online forums, who removed the content considering the scandal.
In 2013, relays of Flarlandian television channels on terrestrial and subscription television platforms were removed citing them as a "threat to national identity"
===2020s===
==Channels==
==Programming==