ATK

ATK (Ashtalaian: Aštalāijiną Televīziijną Kanāla, literally Ashtalaian Television Channel) was an Ashtalaian commercial channel and the first to award a nationwide commercial license (despite takeover of transmitters by VICO's TV4). It operated between October 1, 1991 and late December 14, 2013, two weeks after the channel reportedly lost its broadcasting license. Gienęlys Ramkovski was the president of the channel until March 8, 2011, he was detained after breaking embargo leaking information regarding government spending. It shut down after a complex ownership operation and a scandal on March 7, 2009, leading to the channel's closure two years later, over a supposed "game of interests favoring Flarlandian businessmen involved in the control of Ashtalaian media outlets". Its shutdown is still regarded by many as "an attack on freedom of speech", and the murder of one of its key staff by the First Capital Command (VKK in its Ashtalaian initials), who had been at war with the network since 2003, as well as the effects of Operation Cobweb during the detention of Ramkovski. The shutdown followed two similar shutdowns of local television stations whose stances were against the government of the time. Following its shutdown, anti-government protests erupted due to the shutdown of ATK and the subsequent devolving of Ashtalaian television to government influence.
The channel continued operations outside of Ashtalaia (particularly in Flarland) through its international service ATK SAT for a short period of time.
The channel was one of more than twenty media outlets targeted by the 2012 systemic shutdown of media outlets who, according to government officials, were plotting something against the government of the time. In lists of closed outlets circulating at the time, ATK topped as it was the biggest victim of the "foreign agent" law.
Lastly, after five years struggling to find a U-turn for the channel to resume its operations, the ATK company declared insolvency in January 2012 and was formally declared defunct. The building was later decommissioned.
==History==
===Beginnings===
Ashtalaia had shown interest in starting commercial television as far back as 1976, with the plan to launch a third national Ashtalaian-language network, or the partial takeover of ART 2, which was never achieved due to lack of budget. There were also plans by the Ministry of Education to use the third network, which were ultimately rejected.
On October 20, 1985, the Ashtalaian Government received a proposed bill to allow private television operators within its borders, thanks in part to the growth of Flarlandian relays, which were boosted thanks to the start of satellite relays of these channels. If this was approved, the state's influence on media would be reduced to one radio network (of several stations), one television network (of two channels in Ashtalaian) and a daily newspaper. Some media outlets that were private before 1974 under the soft fascist dictatorship, were scheduled to be reprivatized, however the government wanted to have the final word.
In the wake of this setup was the creation of ATK by groups of Ashtalaian businessmen. The company was founded and subsequently registered on the same day, October 18, 1985, two days before the proposal was submitted to the government. The group was also aware of the "invasion" of Flarlandian relays and the home video market.
Vilvek Communications was founded in 1990 and became one of the two companies that bid for a nationwide commercial license. A series of hurdles led to the nationwide license being handed over to home video company VICO, who, in turn, created TV4. ATK was demoted to "limited national network" instead.
Taking advantage of its limited capabilities, ATK started broadcasting on October 1, 1991 terrestrially only in Vilvek, with the channel buying pre-existing frequencies belonging to small commercial operations across Ashtalaia. The channel invested in low-budget Ashtalaian productions. By contrast, TV4, whose broadcasts started fourteen years later, relied on low-budget imports at first. By the time TV4 started operations, 40% of Ashtalaian households was receiving ATK's terrestrial signal.
By this time, ATK began a rivalry with TV4. Upon its launch, ATK ran a series of adverts saying that TV4 "never took a break"; as until June 1993 it broadcast Network 7 programming during primetime, and also had a "better news department". By contrast, TV4's news division until August 1993 was limited to the channel's presenters reading a paper with two or three relevant stories. ATK's news operation, from day one, was known as Kalendarys (Calendar). It was shown at 19:30, taking advantage over ART's Panorama having moved to 19:00 in the late 80s (it moved back to 19:30 in 1993). Initially it was promoted as "news after the news", until Panorama moved to its former timeslot, leading to the start of competition. ATK also premiered a load of imports (conversedly this was how TV4 started with a meager output), including first-runs on Ashtalaian TV of shows like Knots Landing, The Cosby Show, Landon, and syndicated series like Highlander and The Raven, as well as a variety of movie slots. The channel's viewing audience consolidated about two years after the channel's inception, allowing for more ad revenue to pour in.
By 1994, ATK was receivable in virtually all Ashtalaian households, having received universal coverage, albeit at a much slower pace than TV4.
The channel was earning lucrative profits with the premiere of Stars in Sight (1993), adapted from the Soundmix Show, as well as other formats that helped cement ATK's relationship with the viewer.
===Change of ownership===
In 1995, the Vilvek Film Company bought Vilvek Communications, and, in turn, made ATK a part of its new division, Vilvek Multimedia. Big investments were now put to place, with the channel focusing more on high-profile Flarlandian productions, keeping a news department that was also useful for its parent company (who stopped making newsreels fifteen years before) and making the channel more appealing. The channel added subtitled series, however not everyone was interested. Additionally people with cable relied on cable relays of Flarlandian terrestrial channels if they wanted to watch content in English. Vilvek Multimedia realized that the new format was considered "too elitist" and was comparing it with ART 2, when they were competing against ART 1 and its arch-nemesis, Your TV.
At the same time, Vilvek started a number of theme channels on cable: Vilvek Channel 1 (entertainment), Kino 1 and Kino 2 (subscription movie channels), Sportas (first Ashtalaian-language sports channel), Eksploratorys (documentaries) and Fantastic (children). ATK was confident to be at the center of the network, and promised sinergies between the terrestrial channel and the cable channels.
===Change of format===
In April 1997, ATK changed its format. By then it was now looking for younger demographics.
The channel's new slogan was Apskintys, Atkintys (literally Summer, Winter). The slogan had a pun in which the first three letters of "atkintys" matched the channel's initials (sometimes it was written as Apskintys, ATKintys).
ATK joined the controversial Millennium Television Network in 1999, and was the Ashtalaian broadcaster, alongside longtime aides TV3 and IBC, but the bankruptcy of MTN a day ahead of its program shocked the broadcasters who were willing to do the broadcast, nonetheless ATK tried to make a watered-down program limiting itself to celebrations in Ashtalaia, limiting foreign celebrations to occasional top-of-the-hour appointments.
In 2000, the channel adopted the DOT campaign invented in Hartung, over two periods.
The format wasn't starting to work, especially with its competitor Your TV adopting a more populist line of programming and ultimately "stealing" the younger demographics for the first season of the Ashtalaian version of Big Brother, which Your TV premiered in September 2000. ATK and its fellow partner networks (TV3 Omdalia and IBC Flarland) rejected the format, believing it to be "trash television", thus moving the reality show to their main competing networks.
Around the time of Big Brother's premiere, ATK executives were trying to find a solution to recover much of the audience lost to Your TV during primetime, with the channel entering the reality show market, buying the Sierran format Chains of Love. The format premiered in its Ashtalaian version in February 2001.
Also noteworthy was the premiere of a subtitled version (according to an executive, "the constant censorship made it impossible for a voice-over or a dubbing team to do their jobs"), of The Jerry Springer Show, called by ATK as "The Great American Disaster".
ATK also did extensive coverage of the terrorist atacks in the USS alongside its news channel.
===2001 reformat===
The channel rebranded again in October 2001. A new all-blue logo was unveiled with a theme of rings.
===Judicial problems and subsequent shutdown===
Main articles: 2005-2007 Ashtalaian media crisis, 2005-2007 Ashtalaian media probings and Shutdown of ATK
In May 2005, Your TV complained to the Competition Council about ATK's unfair practices after the premiere of its primetime nightly series Someone Like Me, which gave Your access to total domination of the ratings in the previous month. ATK defended by airing a commercial showing off its variety of programming featuring a bland dish of meat without rice, under the tagline "Don't let your landlords feed you the same dinner every evening".
Throughout June and early July, ATK ran a series of promos ato counter Your's decision. The first promo said: "Attention! Soon, you will lose your unbiased television news", and later "you will lose access to Ashtalaia's best productions".
On September 16, 2005, ATK premiered Lejdīz (Ladies in English, phonetically in Ashtalaian), a reality show where men were assigned a famous woman's name and given female tasks in the Doll House, meant to compete against the Ashtalaian version of (Celebrity) Farm on Your TV. Adapted from the Sierran format He's a Lady, that was also exported with less successful versions in Flarland and Omdalia, the show was impacted heavily by earlier decisions by Your TV and allegations of unfair competition. Despite the increased representation of LGBT people on Ashtalaian TV thanks in part to the Ashtalaian version of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Tarnyba G (G Team), that aired on the same channel in an earlier period, the show was met with much criticism from the onset and was plagued by low ratings.
On September 20, 2005, ATK was under fire after an animated short produced two weeks earlier depicted an ATK executive poisoning a Your TV executive. This incident was broadcast on ATK as an advertisement twice the previous day.
On March 8, 2011, ATK's president was jailed for "an undetermined period of time" for leaking private data about the company.
On April 24, 2010, ATK received a fax from the government. It said that they were threatening to shut ATK down by the end of the month. The following day, ATK had, according to government orders, "48 hours to leave the air". Throughout the day, the schedule continued normally but started to trade ad slots for messages such as "Ashtalaia is feeling empty without its leading channel".
The channel had to extend its main news to end at 21:00 followed by the finale of Lejdīz. During the morning, the production team orchestrated a fire at the Doll House, making Lejdīz the first reality show in Ashtalaia to end without a winner. After the announcement of the fire, contestants shared their (also orchestrated) thoughts on the fire.
At 22:30, government officials entered ATK's building and were headed to the master control room. The last commercial break started at 22:58 and ended at 23:05. Despite the appearance of officials from the regulatory body, some of the staff wanted to believe that the day would continue with "business as usual". Once the final commercial break ended, the officials went down to the nerve center of ATK's broadcast, to cut the signal before midnight. The Flarlandian movie Chains and Tears was interrupted by a pre-recorded video that was taped in late December 1999 in case the channel shut down its operations at the short term. The orders were given about 20 minutes before the channel was shutting down, and the video was located amidst the turbulent month ATK was facing. The video of barely over a minute in length and spoken by Michał Hardī had the following script:
"Ladies and gentlemen, civilization is starting to fall. ATK is going off the air. This is ATK's final program and these are ATK's final seconds. As ATK is going off the air for the final time, we would like to thank everyone who made ATK a living. We hope that our programs were of enjoyment for the Ashtalaian population and that our viewer base has shown its dedication for what is ours. Our channel had a positive footprint since day one in 1991, achieving record ratings and an unparalleled growth in the Ashtalaian television industry. Unfortunately here at ATK we will call it quits. Thank you to everyone involved and we hope that our dreams will be achieved in the coming days. Tonight is the last time you will see us on air on our frequencies. It's all down to us to say our final words: summer, winter, it's over. Good night. Good luck."
The video ended with a fade to black and two seconds later, the carrier was cut off. The channel went off air at 23:20:48. At the same time, Hardī, who at the time was unarmed and likely using his money to buy cigarettes, was assassinated by members of the police who shut down ATK minutes before. ATK was one of the twenty media outlets shut down by the Ashtalaian government in 2010, and the channel was likely the biggest victim of the media crackdown.
===Aftermath===
The exact time of ATK's shutdown became a protest symbol in Ashtalaia for media freedom, and inspired the creation of a movement in December 2013. The movement lost steam in 2018.
The Ashtalaian government declared ATK in liquidation counting from the day of the shutdown of its four channels.
ATK's shutdown led to massive insolvencies and bankruptcies in the Ashtalaian media landscape. Independent producers were the most affected, with 12 companies declaring insolvency.
A blackout was held on December 22, 2014 where most commercial media outlets had their operations limited and, in some cases, shut down.
Following ATK's insolvency in late 2009, the building was vacated. A skilled team digitized the totality of ATK's archives between 2006 and 2008, shortly after the vacating order. The archives not only included ATK's news and entertainment productions, but also sports broadcasts and a handful of imports, most of whom had dubs commissioned for the channel, and were still stored despite the expiration of some of the licenses.
On September 1, 2021, PIKO started a pop-up channel free to all subscribers, PIKO ATK 30, featuring a selection of content from ATK's history. The channel ended at 23:27 on December 31, after showing the shutdown video. The channel was managed jointly by PIKO and the Children of ATK association.
==Branding==
ATK logo proposal.svg|Logo used in applications since the 1986 registration
ATK.svg|October 1, 1991 to September 1997
ATK_late_90s.svg|September 1997 to October 2001. Devised by Pittard-Sullivan.
==Programming==
===National===
*ATK Žinios with four daily editions: 13:00, 16:30, 19:30 and 23:30 at the time of closure. Known as Kalendarys until 1995.
*Antrodieną Vakara: Tuesday night discussion show (1991 to 2002)
*Igžimta iš Šeimynelai (Encounter with Family Relatives): a program where long-lost family relatives were reunited (1992-2000)
*Sęgyrta: soap opera adapted from a Vydorian format, left incomplete when ATK ceased operations. At closing time it was achieving high ratings. (2006)
*G Tarnyba (G Team): show aimed at the LGBT (in Ashtalaia, then just gay and lesbian) sexual minorities, adapted from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (2005).
*Lejdīz: adaptation of He's a Lady where male contestants were given female tasks and assigned the names of famous female celebrities and characters. Cancelled after two weeks on air because of low ratings. (2005)
===International===
*[USS] 16 Wheels of Justice (2001)
*[ORI] Hamtaro (2002-2005)
*[ETI/KEI] Highlander (1993-1998)
*[ITE] Valentina (1995)
===Ryta Televizija===
===Programming that was in course at shutdown time but got cancelled===
===Programs that never premiered===
*Faktorą X: Ashtalaian version of The X Factor, scheduled to premiere in October. Some auditions were held buy the program never premiered.
===Fate of the contracts===
==Controversies==
===Forfeitures===
The channel has been subjected to repeated infractions from the regulatory bodies concerning radio and television broadcasting and entertainment ratings, particularly after 1995.
Category:Television channels in Ashtalaia
Category:Defunct television channels