Qabóri Broadcasting Company
| Qabóri Broadcasting Company | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Launched | Radio: 22 May 1927 Television: 16 November 1943 |
| Owned by | QBC Holdings Imperial Government of Tierrador (30%) |
| Picture format | 1080p HDTV |
| Country | Tierrador |
| Language | Qabóri |
| Broadcast area | Mainly South Crona, some broadcasts shown worldwide |
| Affiliates | QBC Ceylonia QBC Istrenya QBC Malentina QBC Porlos |
| Headquarters | QBC Building, Qabór, Las Rozas |
| Replaced | Qabór Radio |
Availability | |
| Terrestrial | |
| TerraTel | 01 |
| Cable | |
| Avalanche by Orixtal | 02 |
| IPTV | |
| Orixtal+ | 01 |
The Qabóri Broadcasting Company (QBC) is a Tierradorian public broadcaster for both television and radio. QBC serves serves as the flagship network of the QBC Holdings entertainment conglomerate, while also being partially owned by the Imperial Government of Tierrador, through a 30% stake. It is headquartered in the QBC Building on Block 7 East in Qabór, Las Rozas, with its headquarters overlooking the Kostané Bay and the Songun Sea. QBC is the largest of the Tierradorian "Big three" public broadcasters, the other two being TBS, based in Taisgol, and Televisión Cinco, based in Ambaqwe. QBC is the main Qabóri-language service broadcaster of the trio, with TBS offering Terra Ænglish-language and Televisión Cinco offering both Pelaxian-language and Cartadanian-language services.
Despite some local stations pre-dating its founding, QBC is the oldest continually-existing broadcasting network in South Crona, being officially established on May 22, 1927, as a radio network. On November 16, 1943, QBC established the first South Cronan television network, for the purpose of broadcasting the final events of the Second Great War to the people of Tierrador. The company was one of three broadcasters that had established television networks on that day, via Crown Order. Originally, QBC had been funded by television licensing fees, however as the licensing funding was split amongst the two other networks, this method eventually became impractical, and all three networks were placed under the newly-created Office of Media, which receives funding from the Imperial Government. License fees were still collected by the government until 1951, but they were mainly pooled into the government's general revenue for that year.
QBC offers programming services mainly in Qabóri, as it was designated by the 1943 Crown Order. However, they have also begun to offer services in Terra Ænglish, along with services more than 20 Abio languages. The network has 14 owned-and-operated stations across South Crona, with 8 in Tierrador, 2 each in Ceylonia and Porlos, and 1 each in Istrenya and Malentina. In addition, QBC has more than 240 affiliated stations throughout the aforementioned South Cronan countries. Some QBC-affiliated stations are available in Alstin and Asteria via pay-television providers, and some affiliates can be received over-the-air in areas situated on the Porlos-Alstin border.
History
Qabór Radio (1927–1943)
Before the establishment of a uniform national radio network in Tierrador, most Tierradorians were only able to listen to local radio networks, which in turn were only available in larger metropolitan areas of the country. People in much smaller, rural areas, were only able to receive news via paper media, which was very inconvenient as most newspapers in South Crona were delivered a day after the events had already occurred. In 1925, the Imperial Government under the Walakee State had determined that a nationalized radio network that spanned throughout South Crona was needed for the area. Therefore, in 1927, the first radio network in Tierrador, Qabór Radio, was launched nationwide. Three years later, another nationalized radio station, the Ænglish-language TBS, would also be established under the same intentions as Qabór Radio, however with Ænglish-language services rather than Qabór Radio's Qabóri-language services.
In 1931, Qabór Radio began to take over multiple radio stations in Porlos and Ceylonia, which allowed for it to broadcast all over South Crona. Due to below-average relations with Istrenya and Malentina at the time, Qabór Radio would not begin operations in those countries until 1976. For the next couple of decades, Qabór Radio would be responsible for all radio broadcasting innovations within Tierrador. As it was considered to be the main public broadcaster of the country, Qabór Radio would also have the highest number of listeners in Tierrador, due to technological advancements of that time allowing the company to broadcast in rural areas which normally would not have had access to daytime radio unless they paid a large sum of money, to which most could not afford.
In 1932, Qabór Radio extended its broadcast day to 24 hours, being the first radio broadcaster in Crona to do so. Both TBS and Qabór Radio quickly jumped to the top-two most-listened networks in Crona. However, as the Walakee State had became slightly more authoritarian over the course of the 1930s, the networks started to experience heavy censorship by the government. This included controlling most radio programs to the point where producers were required to submit drafts of their program's itinerary for review by the ICC, with the review turning into a long and drawn-out bureaucratic process that resulted in most producers pulling their programs from Qabór Radio.
The beginning of the Second Great War in 1934 was recorded by Tierradorian journalists sent by the Walakee State as a method of justifying the regime's neutrality in the global conflict. The war was the first war to be broadcasted on radio in Tierrador, and many began to support the anti-war sentiment from the Imperial Government. A large portion of the war's Cronan theater were broadcasted throughout the South Songun Peninsula, which sent a wave a fear over the residents of the peninsula, who believed that they would somehow be dragged into the war.
Early years of QBC (1943–1955)
While the war raged on in South Crona and the rest of the world, Qabór Radio had made many advancements of its own. In 1942, it was announced that Qabór Radio would be renamed to the Qabóri Broadcasting Company, and it would begin offering television broadcasts nationwide. On May 19, 1943, the first television broadcast in QBC history premiered, the live broadcast of the signing and ratification of the Treaty of Kartika, which officially ended the Second Great War. Over the course of the 1940s, television broadcasts became a popular luxury amongst upper-class Tierradorians, as televisions were hard to come by at that time. In 1944, QBC began showing daily news broadcasts from the recently-acquired WQB-TV, renaming it to WQBC-TV and operating it as the network's flagship owned-and-operated station from Qabór.
After WQBC had signed on the air, more owned-and-operated stations began to follow suit: WTS-TV in Taisgol signed on the air in March 1945, WTLC-TV in Ominasky and WCCG-TV in Ambaqwe in April, KPRI-TV in Prisamarina in May, and KMIC-TV in Miccubo in August. Eventually, Porlosi stations KNQI-TV (Naqili) and KAT-TV (Anteerii), and Ceylon station WEST-TV (East Sachia) were bought by QBC as the only three non-Tierradorian owned-and-operated stations of the company. In 1947, The Attenats, starring Aphío Attenat, premiered as the first weekly sitcom on the network. The Attenats would release new episodes every Saturday until 1992, making it the longest-running sitcom in television history.
In 1951, Pedro Kintón succeeded Satola Sanléc as the Grand Woqali of Tierrador, and quickly began to reform several aspects of the country, including its broadcasting industry. Kintón's domestic cultural policy of "Tierrador-first" meant increased funding for the Qabóri-language QBC, though at the expense of other non-Qabóri broadcasters. Despite this, QBC was able to expand its operations with the newfound funding and took over as the main public broadcaster of Tierrador. In 1953, QBC began television broadcasts of select OIAA college football games, as television began to replace radio as the main form of media. The first nationally-televised match was the 1953 edition of the Origins rivalry between Taisgol University and Qabór University, which ended 34–29 in favor of the Taisgol Saints.
The 1954 Orchid Bowl between the Anbarsnia Burgundy Knights and the Prisamarina Urlazians, who were both undefeated at 10–0 and were playing for the national title, was broadcasted on QBC. The game had close to 21 million viewers across Tierrador, Porlos, and Ceylonia, which made the 22–19 victory for the Burgundy Knights the most-watched college football game in OIAA Division I history until 1971.
Kintónist propaganda era (1955–1989)
Kintón began to use his influence on the QBC network as a means to spread pro-Walakee propaganda throughout the country, and even throughout the world. In 1957, QBC began broadcasting in Delepasia, as the two nations, sharing somewhat similar ideologies, began to broadcast their views on the respective populations of both countries. With this decision, Kintón began to expand his influence on the Vallosian subcontinent. Also in 1957 saw the increase of pirate radio stations throughout the Orixtal Sea near mainland Tierrador. The Western Cluster was an interconnected cluster of decommissioned oil rigs which were transformed into radio transmitters, began airing anti-Walakee propaganda, and broadcasted banned popular music from Levantia and Alstin.
Nobody in Kintón's administration knew where the Western Cluster was based until 1974, when it was discovered through satellite imagery that the cluster was in the Gulf of Telohakee-Alcosky, a position about 170 nautical miles off the coast of Natbanett, Alcosky. During the Calico Bay War and the Mosquito War, which both occurred in the mid to late-1960s, QBC and the Western Cluster began competing for airtime, with the QBC broadcasting outrageous justifications for Tierrador's involvement in both wars and the Western Cluster calling for middle and lower-class residents to organize against the Walakee State, as they were by far the most affected economic classes of both the wars. The end of the Mosquito War had also brought an end to the QBC-Western Cluster's broadcast war, and QBC slowly returned to its normal programming.
In the 1970s, QBC began to sway from propaganda broadcasts back to normal news and sports broadcasts. In 1969, QBC signed the first television deal with the Orixtal Hockey League, where it would broadcast every year's Watson Cup Finals series' from 1969 to 2010.