Television in Tavaris

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Regular broadcasts of television service in Tavaris began in 1939. In 2020, approximately 97.9% of Tavari households owned a television set. The Tavari government has historically placed significant investment in radio communications, including television (in Tavari: Releten Cõlcavi, lit. visual radio) and has maintained a strong tradition of public television broadcasting even during an era of extensive privatization of other state services in the 2000s and 2010s. From 1971 until the transition to digital television in 2011, the Tavari government offered a rebate on the purchase of one monochrome TV set per household which lowered the retail price of the set to 1 našdat (though the purchaser still needed to pay the television registration fee to the state broadcaster, which in 2011 was ŋ6,000, or about SHD $125.) This program was a project of Prime Minister Alakar Movri Andarik, who ran on the pledge (known as the Television Togetherness Plan) as DNP leader to leverage television to bring Tavari together after the heightened sectarian tensions between Akronists and Avatidari of the 1950s and 1960s, which was considered both popular and successful and which encouraged the adoption of television into Tavari culture.

Teletext services (Tavari: Reletekst), introduced in the early 1980s, remained unusually popular in Tavaris until the end of the analog television era in 2011, even after the development and popularization of the Urth Wide Utility, and digital interactive services known as “digital teletext” (Tavari: reletekst dížítal) have replaced them with wide adoption across the Tavari TV industry. As such, much of Tavari television programming, especially news broadcasts, reality TV and televised games or competitions, and children's programming, is designed with interactive features in mind. The system is also used for emergency alerts and weather and financial market information, and also provides an additional degree of accommodation for deaf or hard-of-hearing viewers in the form of expanded captioning services. Accessible over free airwaves without an internet connection, teletext has remained popular among Tavari even after the widespread adoption of the Internet elsewhere in society.

Channels

Terrestrial television

The four major Tavari broadcasters include state-owned Tavarís Vokaivatantovaníšt (“Public Broadcasting Tavaris,” known coincidentally as TV) and three commercial broadcasters: Bló, Elat vat Tovat (“East and West,” known as EVT), and RCG (which formerly stood for “Releten Cõlcavi Gazar,” or “your television.”) Most major Tavari urban areas have all four, while smaller areas may have fewer. Public Broadcasting Tavaris is required by statute to have a presence in every Tavari media market. There also exist several smaller, local, or independent broadcast networks that exist regionally. Public Broadcasting Tavaris is supported by television registration fees and by funding from the Tavari government from general government revenue, while the commercial networks use advertising.

Public Broadcasting Tavaris

Public Broadcasting Tavaris offers two channels, TV1 and TV2, with the former designed to be “national” in scope with much of its content produced in Nuvrenon and the latter “regional,” with each local broadcast facility able to control more of their own TV2 schedule. TV1 is always channel 1 in every media market; as TV2 was launched later (in 1975, compared to TV1’s 1939), channel 2 was already allocated in most markets and TV2’s placement varies.

RCG

In most markets, channel 2 is held by RCG, which was the first commercial broadcaster to launch. RCG was historically the home of the majority of Universal Wrestling League shows until the launch of their own channel in 2007 (though the League had long also aired one show a week on the other networks) because of founder Vinšt Makam Hanon's opposition to the state-owned broadcaster that he decried as "socialistic." After the Universal Wrestling League left RCG to launch its own cable channel, RCG replaced it by bringing the Wealden-based World Wrestling Alliance to Tavari television for the first time in 2008.

Elat vat Tovat

RCG was the primary competitor to Public Broadcasting Tavaris from 1940 until 1956, when Elat vat Tovat launched, at first only in Elatana, then a Tavari overseas territory. It was also the first Tavari broadcaster to operate in foreign countries, entering the Tavari-language broadcast market in the Union of Free Cities in 1959 and Racatrazi in 1960. It began opening broadcast stations in mainland Tavaris and elsewhere in the kingdom in 1972. Taking advantage of significant new subsidies for opening television stations under Prime Minister Alakar Movri Andarik's "Television Togetherness Plan," the network rapidly exploded onto the scene in Tavaris, ushering in a wave of competition between the TV networks that had not been seen before.

More than any other network, EVT became associated with the Television Togetherness Plan and, as such, with the politics of television, and by the late 1970s it was receiving complaints that its news and other editorial content was skewed in favor of the DNP, specifically its center-left faction. It gained the moniker "TV3" out of the perception that it was simply another government-owned network, a name still sometimes used derogatorily. While government investigations cleared EVT of violating neutrality standards, the network took a credibility hit and is still commonly linked to center-left politics. EVT is known especially for children's programming (they were the first in Tavaris to air a block of "Saturday morning cartoons") and artistic programming such as televised operas and stage plays, foreign language artistic cinema, and the long-running art education program The Pleasure of Painting.

Bló

Bló (pronounced as the Staynish-Codexian word blue) is the newest of the four main broadcasters, launching in 1981. The network was closely involved in efforts to bring rugby to Tavaris, using the launch of the Tavari Rugby Cup (which they exclusively televised) to draw attention. Rugby proved a breakaway smash hit among the Tavari public and Bló's success as a network was assured within a few years of the Cup's operation. Bló continues to hold the exclusive right to air rugby in Tavaris. The network has also been involved in bringing ice hockey to the country and has aired matches of the Tavari Hockey League since 2004. Bló tends to market itself as trendy and focused on young people, and at times has garnered a reputation for being "edgy" or "inflammatory."

In 2010, the network was fined ten million našdat (about $208,000 SHD) for violating regulations on the usage of swear words prior to 11:00pm on weeknights. (A meteorologist used the word "fuck" upon falling and hitting his head on air at 10:53pm.) The network—outraged at the government choosing to levy the maximum fine for an accidental event in which their meteorologist was concussed and required stitches—refused to pay, daring the Ministry of Internal Affairs to take the network off the air. When the Ministry ordered just that, Bló sued and won, defeating the Tavari government on free speech grounds, overturning literally all of the government's regulations against obscenity on television because, as the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled, "obscenity" was so loosely defined it could be used to prosecute "essentially any speech whatsoever."

While judicial review in Tavaris is ostensibly highly limited—a two-thirds vote of the Diet can entrench any law with constitutional force, which would overrule any contraindicating court ruling, and a three-quarters vote of the Diet can amend the text of the country's constitution directly, without a referendum—the Diet was unable to attain the majority required to overrule the court, and as such for a brief period it was legal to air even the most explicit pornography, which Bló did (for sixteen consecutive hours on a Tuesday, beginning at 7am.) A weaker package of anti-obscenity laws was later passed and Tavari law now explicitly defines a list of specific words that cannot be said on television, as well as a list of sex acts and a specific list of crimes and other activities that cannot be shown. As a result of the ruling, the country has weaker anti-obscenity laws on television than many others. Notably, the word "fuck" is now allowable at any time of day, but only in Staynish-Codexian.

Each year on the anniversary of their fine, Bló news anchors read on air the entire text of Section 418.27-262 of the Tavari Compiled Statutes, Annotated, which contains the list of proscribed swear words. The network maintains that the government cannot prosecute them for reading the text of a law on air, and while legal observers have generally concluded it is unlikely Bló would win such a court case, the government has yet to prosecute the network for the offenses, with many observers concluding the government is afraid to risk Bló winning another speech case.

Cable and Satellite

Several cable and satellite television providers also exist in Tavaris. Each is required to also carry feeds of the local over-the-air broadcasters for their subscribers in each media market. As of a 2022 Ranzalar Media Research survey, the most popular cable networks watched in Tavaris were the Universal Wrestling Network, Common (Staynish-Codexian language entertainment), Mõzibõzi (children's entertainment), and Monata Sports Network (formerly owned by auto manufacturer Monata Automotive.)

Unlike many other countries, 24-hour news channels have not had significant success in Tavaris—several have launched but only one, Nuvrenon News Network, owned by the country's largest newspaper by circulation, has remained in operation continuously. A 2020 survey indicated that 85% of Tavari prefer to get their news from their local broadcaster's daily evening news report rather than cable networks. A majority of these respondents indicated "lack of trust" as their primary reason for eschewing cable news.

Stations

Local TV stations are commonly identified by their callsign issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Improvements, and are in fact required to identify themselves on air by this callsign once an hour. For example, the RCG affiliate in Nuvrenon is known as QRCG-2, with the digit representing its channel number. Historically, callsigns in eastern Tavaris began with Q while western Tavari callsigns (including Rodoka) began with V, and stations in overseas territories with Z. However, with most V stations falling in what is now Acronis, remaining V callsigns within Tavaris have been changed after independence, allowing the Acronian government to continue using V. Stations in Elatana are transitioning to callsigns beginning with E, Rodokan stations to R, and those in the Union Territories to U. Z remained in use for a similar callsign system in Metradan after independence in 1904, but Racatrazi has ceased using Tavari callsigns. These callsigns are separate from international callsigns issued by the Global Telecommunications Coordination Organization, which are often but not always simply the Tavari government issued callsign with a GTCO-issued prefix assigned to Tavaris.

Tavari law forbids the owners of one TV station from owning any other TV stations in that media market, and also limits how many markets one owner can operate in. This has resulted in a largely fragmented televison network environment, with most being regionally-focused businesses rather than national ones. Broadcasters are also subject to neutrality regulations largely forbidding stations from endorsing particular politicians or proposed legislation, though unlike the public broadcaster, commercial networks are allowed to publicly take stances regarding legislation that directly affects the broadcast television industry (e.g. a bill changing ownership or obscenity regulations) so long as it is identified on screen as "editorial, non-neutral coverage." This differs from printed news in Tavaris, which is not required to be politically neutral. Cable channels are also exempted from this requirement—only stations broadcast over the public airwaves are required to maintain this neutrality.