GBN

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GBN
Gbn logo.png
GBN logo used since 2006
Launched31 December 1949 (1949-12-31)
Owned byGBC
Picture format1080i HDTV
(downscaled to 480i for the SDTV feed)
Audience share24.6% (December 2027, GBRB)
CountryGandoor
Broadcast areaGandoor
Formerly calledGandoor Broadcasting Network (1949 - 2006)
Sister channel(s)

GBN (formerly an initialism for Gandoor Broadcasting Network until 2006 and stylized in network logos as gbn) is the primary television channel operated by the GBC, the Gandoorese public broadcaster. GBN went on the air in 1949 and airs on channel 2 in Gandoor.

History

The history of GBN dates back to 1935, when the GBC began the first experimental television broadcasts from the GBC Centre in Gandoor City. At the time, television sets were not purchasable by private citizens, so members of the public who wished to view these early broadcasts would have to visit locations such as universities or public libraries which had 'television broadcast rooms'. While the majority of the broadcasts during the first couple of years were things such as short newscasts, brief snippets from films, or condensed adaptions of plays; the entirety of Game 3 of the Gandoor Baseball National Championship of 1936 was broadcast live on the channel, the first broadcast of a sporting event on television in Gandoor.

The length of the broadcast day for the GBC's experimental television network (which soon acquired the unofficial nickname of 'GBC Television') would be set at nine hours per day (excepting for emergencies) in mid-1936: three hours in the morning from 6.00 AM until 9.00 AM, three hours in the afternoon from 12.00 PM until 3.00 PM, and three hours in the evening from 7.00 PM until 10.00 PM. This corresponded with the release of television sets for rental, with members of the public able to rent television sets for usage in their own homes at a cost of 50 GDY per month (equivalent to 552 GDY in 2027) and of the first regularly scheduled television programs in Gandoor. One notable early program was The Television Dramas, an anthology series of teleplays that was broadcast every Saturday from 8.00 PM until 9.00 PM from 7 November 1936 until 20 March 1937 for 20 episodes. The Television Dramas was the first regularly scheduled scripted television series in Gandoor to rely entirely upon original scripts for its episodes (earlier examples of scripted television series had all adapted works from other mediums, most commonly literature or plays, to television and previous examples of original teleplays were broadcast as standalone programs, not as part of a single series).

Experimental television broadcasts ended in 1941 as a result of the State of Emergency law, which went into force the year prior, and there were no television networks broadcasting in Gandoor for several years. In early 1948, the GBC announced the creation of a public television network, tentatively referred to as the 'Gandoor Broadcasting Corporation Television Service', which was scheduled to begin airing by 1950. This early announcement was done in order to prepare for the purchasing of television sets by the public, which began in mid-1949. At the same time that television sets became purchasable, the GBC announced that the television network would be called the Gandoor Broadcasting Network, due to a 1939 law that prohibited television networks from having identical or similar names to radio networks.

On 31 December 1949, at 11.45 in the evening, the Gandoor Broadcasting Network aired its inaugural broadcast, a New Year's Eve broadcast that lasted until 12.30 am on 1 January 1940 before signing off until 6.00 am. GBN would continue to sign off during the night until 1995, when it officially began 24-hour television broadcasts.

The GBC wasn't affected by the Great TV Crash of 1957 as much as its commercial competitors were, due to its status as the non-commercial public broadcaster and therefore was not reliant on any commercial revenue to survive, but many expensive programs were still cancelled and new programming was noticeably lower-budget for several years, as funding for the GBC was decreased by the Government during the height of the post-war economic crisis from 1958 until 1964.

In 1967, GBN began to transition its programming to colour, four years after the establishment of GBN 2, which broadcast exclusively in colour, and almost ten years after GBN broadcast an episode of the drama Rose in colour as part of an experiment in colour broadcasting in 1958. The transition to full-colour broadcasting on GBN was completed by 1970.

A digital HD sister channel for GBN would begin broadcasting in 1997, with the first program produced in high-definition being the late-night talk show ''Talk! With Johnny Bloomseed''.

In October 2005, the GBC announced that the name of the Gandoor Broadcasting Network would officially be shortened to simply GBN on 1 January 2006, in order to keep consistency with sister channel GBN Alt.

Programming

For the first eleven years of its existence, all programming on GBN were required to be produced in-house but, in 1960, programs produced by independent companies were permitted to air on GBN, although they could only make-up 15% of the total programming aired on the network annually. In 1973, the restriction on the broadcast of foreign programming was lifted, primarily due to declining ratings in response to commercial broadcasters airing popular series from countries such as the United States. Similar to non-in-house programming, foreign programming was limited to only 10% of all programs aired annually, officially due to the GBC being required to promote Gandoorese culture.

Over the years, the ratio of independent and foreign programming allowed on GBN has increased, to the current maximum of 40% of programming on GBN being either foreign or from independent companies. Popular domestic programming includes: Rose, The Professor, and Talk! With Aya Miura. Popular foreign programming includes: Doctor Who, The Simpsons, and General Hospital.