User:Slgrandson/Sevton sandbox/Television channels/HCP

Rogatia National Television, operating as HCP-TV (formerly ZHCP-TV; currently stylised on air as hcp), is the national television broadcaster serving the North Atlantic island country of Rogatia. The channel's initials are the official shorthand for Hippocampus (the Latin genus name for the seahorse, Rogatia's national animal). HCP has been broadcast on VHF channel 3 in Rogatia's capital, Trouvaille, ever since launch. It began digital (ATSC/HDTV) transmission in August 2008 on channel 3.1; since March 2009, a suite of local sister stations and U.S. digital subchannel services has accompanied it.

History
It began transmission on September 1, 1964, at 6:00 a.m. AST, as ZHCP. The channel's first broadcast was a 10–second bumper in which its mascot, a seahorse named Blip, blew out bubbles of the call letters. This was animated by a group of seven artists from the Weymouth area, who would later become the core group of TJE Studios in the 1970s.

After the bumper, ZHCP went straight to its first program, a live two-hour-long ceremony hosted by radio announcer Delanie Chanel at the studio facilities in northern Trouvaille. Right after, the channel aired "Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying to Murder Her", the first episode of I Love Lucy.

During much of its early existence, programs on ZHCP aired months (or even years) after they debuted in their native countries. In addition to the frequent U.S. imports, shows from Europe, South America and Japan also had airtime. Among its offerings at the time were anime series such as (but not limited to) Speed Racer, Battle of the Planets (Gatchaman), The Amazing Three and Space Battleship Yamato.

On September 1, 1972, HCP became one of the first Caribbean stations to broadcast in colour (after Barbados' CBC TV 3).

On October 15, 1984, the Mark Goodson word game Super Password became the last program to have its local premiere on ZHCP, before more American shows made their way through Hycam's HyCable service the following month.

From its first day on air, HCP was an independent O&O (owned-and-operated) service of the local government (along with sister radio stations ZHCP-FM and ZHCP 575 AM). In February 2013, Rogatia's government shuttered indefinitely in response to the Aaron Swartz controversy; a month later, the President and Prime Minister sold its broadcasting operations to a shell company based in Barbados. On June 13, the shell company renamed itself as Rogatia Media Partners Ltd. Its subsidiaries, Rogatia TV Partners LLC and Rogatia Radio Partners LLC, are fully owned by their employees.

In late October 2014, HCP announced its intentions to launch a regionwide cable feed of its main channel, citing recent heavy competition from local movie theatres as a factor. A Caribbean counterpart to WGN America, the feed began broadcasting on May 25, 2015.

Programming
Colloquially, local viewers assume the station's name to stand for High-Class Programming, due to the long-lasting reputation of its quality line-up—comprising mostly of shows not often seen on U.S. outlets, and others from Canada, Europe and Asia.

Throughout North America and the Caribbean, HCP is best known as the station responsible for Redemption, Hycam's religiously-themed soapcom that aired from 1983 to 1996 in over 155 countries. It remained the channel's (and Rogatia's) only original television series until You Oughta Know, a weekend primetime news/talk show, premiered on October 10, 2008.

The station's next series, Balfour (a local version of CBS' CSI), premiered on October 11, 2010. Production partners include Hycam Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television, Britain's itv and the Decode Entertainment branch of Canada's DHX Media. The debut season comprised 28 episodes and aired on CBS, MyNetwork and CW affiliates in the U.S., as well as Canada's Global, France 3, Germany's ARD and Australia's Seven Network. Season 2, consisting of 26 episodes, ran from mid-October 2011 to June 2012, while Season 3 (with 27 episodes) aired between September 2012 and June 2013. Beginning in November 2013, the show entered hiatus due to Rogatia's own indefinite government shutdown, and the production partners dropping out. Season 4 will premiere in early 2016, exclusively on Hycam's official site and the Internet Archive.

A pan-regional version of Endemol's British quiz show The Million Pound Drop Live was once in the works (as two separate series, the primetime Million Dollar Drop and the daytime Money Drop) for the 2011–2012 season; these plans were dropped in favour of a Lingo revivial, which premiered in July 2014. Due to Rogatia's ongoing government shutdown, episodes of Lingo were taped at Barbados' CBC TV 8 studio instead. Lingo is also on hiatus until sometime in late 2015, due to the global Ebola and regional chikungunya outbreaks impacting air travel in Rogatia.

HCP's foray into public-affairs programming, The Greater Good, premiered on Sunday, February 1, 2015 at 2:00 p.m.

Mainstays of HCP's schedule include reruns of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood on weekday mornings; a game-show block on weekday afternoons; and the "Sunday Action Zone", devoted to action movies every Sunday at 5:00 p.m. since 1995. HCP 2 is home to a rerun package of SpongeBob SquarePants, consisting of the first three seasons and select later episodes, as well as scattered showings of Disney Channel original series (particularly Phineas & Ferb) in late-night timeslots. In early 2010, the HCP channels brought back some shows that had not been on its schedule (or aired on any other U.S./foreign outlets) in years, such as The Cosby Show, Gilligan's Island, SCTV and Night Court. In September 2014, it added afternoon reruns of The Equalizer as a tie-in to the 2014 film.

The local HCP channels signed off for 2–6 hours every night until December 25–26, 2014, when they committed to a 24–hour schedule for the first time. Due to the influence of religious channels such as TBN, the main channel also remained in sign-off mode on Sunday mornings until December 28. A simulcast of sister station HCP NewsNow constitutes their overnight and early Sunday programming.

While HCP has long served the Trouvaille and nearby Byahaut/Toulon/Leesdale areas on channel 3, it was also once carried on different positions across the country: 6 (Hodgence, St. Stephen, and Barome), 12 (Castle Brook, Estinda, Gaudium, and northern Shropshire), 17 (Weymouth and southern Elmshire), 19 (Jouannigot and northern Elmshire), and 23 (Yorkshire Province). Effective May 1, 2013, HCP serves the entire country on channel 3, thanks to normalisation of the terrestrial and cable lineups.

Movies
Movies on HCP's local channels air under the MovieNation banner, and are edited and re-rated for content per the station's guidelines. Those airing in primetime on the main channel are rated G, PG, and PG-13 by the MPAA; staff members screen unrated films for content issues before they can air.

Since September 2000, HCP has aired CineFile, its series of short segments focusing on key moments from popular and obscure films. CineFile usually serves as filler between shows during the afternoon and nighttime hours.

News
ZHCP began hour-long newscasts in November 1964; these were originally confined to Friday evenings at 6:00 p.m., because of the high cost and scarcity of videotape material at the time. By September 1979, the news could also be seen on Wednesdays, and in July 1984, on Mondays as well. In February 1990, the station began showing the package every weekday; it moved to 5:00 p.m. in September 2005, and added a 4:00 p.m. slot on August 15, 2011 (in lieu of The Oprah Winfrey Show ' s cancellation). ZHCP began 6:00 a.m. newscasts on September 9, 1999. Unless special coverage or a breaking story happens, there is no news during the weekend.

The current roster of anchors consists of Jewell LaGordon, Sharis Lommeaux, Morris Stanton and Harris Rondell.

Since July 2014, HCP's NewsNow unit has maintained responsibilities for the network's news coverage. Its NewsNow channel is simulcast during overnight hours and early Sunday mornings, while the 5:00 p.m. newscast also airs on HCP 2. News bulletins of up to five minutes are also carried on This TV (under the banner "This is HCP NewsNow"); an audio version, "NewsNext", is heard before feature presentations at Rogatia's cinemas. NewsNow handles production duties for You Oughta Know and The Greater Good.

To match the network's recent image revamp, HCP's newscast was rebranded as NewsNation on February 2, 2015.

TV ratings
From January 1998 to June 2008, ZHCP only used the U.S. television rating system at the start of shows. Until January 2013, both this and the local ROMERA system were used in tandem. With ROMERA's closure, HCP reverted back to the U.S. ratings. HCP also supplies ratings bugs for Antenna TV and (effective November 2013) This TV, which do not carry any on their original feeds.

Rebranding and new channels
On February 9, 2009, HCP officially retired the "Z" from its branding, callsign and promotional material, despite being a licensed terrestrial network. Its radio counterparts, however, continue to use the original initials, thus preserving the outlets' decades-old legacy.

On the morning of March 7, 2009, HCP launched three new channels in an effort to ease its already crowded program line-up: The Blip (analog 22, digital 3.2/22.1), Z3 (analog 23, digital 3.3/23.1), and 4 MHz (analog 24, digital 3.4/24.1). At 5:00 a.m. AST, the rebranded main channel became the first station in North America to air the long-running British game show, Countdown, beginning with the first two episodes from November 1982. It now airs on weekday afternoons at 1:30 p.m (prior to November 30, 2009, 12:30 p.m.).

With the revamp, it also received its third new slogan (and campaign) in over half a year: "Right Where We Belong", partly influenced by the 1982 soft rock hit "Up Where We Belong" by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes.

From April 1 to September 27, 2009, Pat Benetar's "We Belong" was heard during the campaign's bumpers. Also on April 1, HCP removed commercial advertising and end-credit speed-ups from all movies and animated TV fare, giving in to viewer complaints. Either a CineFile segment, or a classic cartoon short from the archives of Warner Bros./Turner Entertainment, Walt Disney Studios, Paramount/Famous, Screen Gems/UPA, and Russia's Soyuzmultfilm and T/O Ekran (among other studios), will air right after such material has finished.

A new version of HCP's logo was unveiled on January 22, 2010, on a bumper card preceding the 9 p.m. AST broadcast of Hope for Haiti Now on its main and sister channels. For the first time in eight years, the station mascot Blip appeared alongside the call letters. This design also appeared on air for the duration of the charity event.

On January 1, 2011, HCP aired the first two episodes of Dan Vs., an animated Film Roman series airing on The Hub.

On July 24, 2011, HCP's NewsNow service was introduced on channel 27/3.7, as the country's first-ever station to air 24 hours a day. It was launched as a response to the closure of BBC World Service's Caribbean branch. The eighth (and final) channel in the original HCP suite, surplus (stylised as "sur+"), was launched on August 8, 2011 (on 28/3.8) with an Eight Is Enough marathon.

By January 2013, the U.S.-based subchannels were reallocated to their corresponding ATSC positions in the New York market, as HCP prepared to bring in more subchannels to expand the suite. News Now moved to channel 39/27.1, and surplus to 38/28.1. On July 14, 2013—Bastille Day—HCP and France Télévisions launched Rogatia 1, a French-language simulcast of the main HCP channel (on 36/14.2). That same day, The Blip and 4 MHz were rebranded as HCP 2 and Zone respectively.

On November 10, 2014, HCP replaced the "belong" campaign and graphics package with a new one, dubbed "TV Nation" on domestic broadcasts and "TV Paradise" on the regional feed.

With the exception of its weekday newscasts, some live/sports coverage, and its pillarbox decors on older programs in HD, the HCP logo no longer appears during programs; this mandate also applies to the sister channels, sans various U.S. subchannels and NewsNow. Since 1979, programming on HCP's schedule has always begun "on the dot" at the given air times, with any promos and ratings/accessibility information preceding it. Since 2009, the latter has been displayed in a format similar to what is shown on U.S. premium movie channels.

U.S. subchannels
As of June 2015, HCP is a secondary affiliate of 14 U.S. digital subchannel services, which comprise its "HCP Suite" and air locally-prepared commercial breaks in place of direct-response advertisements. (Those airing on This TV were removed on April 1, 2011.)

Family programming
In late January 2009, HCP personnel scrapped their plans for a fourth channel, a family-oriented outlet named ZHYP; some of them felt it would slightly repeat the role of Tiny Pop's local feed. As a replacement, the main station launched Excel, a weekday-afternoon block consisting only of animated fare, on March 9. Competition with Lifetime's reruns of Wife Swap, however, forced HCP executives to end it on April 17. The next morning, it became the channel's Saturday daytime package, airing from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00–6:00 p.m. Excel ' s last broadcast was on April 30, 2011; all animated programming on HCP's local stations is now branded under the CartoonNation banner.

Most Tiny Pop programming was absorbed into Zone, HCP's fourth local channel. Sister channels HCP, HCP 2, and Z3 have also aired various other family shows since their launch. The majority of such fare is broadcast during late mornings, prime time, and Saturdays on the main channel.

On May 25, 2015, HCP introduced the "DisneyNation" banner on a primetime airing of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The brand only appears on theatrical and TV movies from the Walt Disney Pictures/Walt Disney Television library whenever they air on HCP's local channels. It is not present on Disney-produced TV series; material from Touchstone (including post-2011 DreamWorks releases), Hollywood Pictures, and Studio Ghibli (under license in North America); and airings on U.S.-sourced channels in the Suite.

A few hours later, HCP introduced "Night Light", a family-oriented block which runs from 11:30 p.m. until 2:30 or 3:00 a.m.

Other programming
The first season of Knots Landing began airing on Z3 on November 30, 2009, in time for that show's 30th anniversary.

Schedule revamp
In September 2010, HCP decided to revamp the main channel's primetime line-up. This came after staffers expressed concern over the lack of movies during that timeframe on the major U.S. networks, and especially on WGN America, which cut back on them upon the arrival of new shows such as The New Adventures of Old Christine, Dharma & Greg, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Entourage. During the Hub's tenure, however, the movies were pushed back to 10 p.m. every night from January 10, 2011 until November 10, 2014, when they moved back to 8 p.m. The station entered temporary sign-off mode during 8 and 10 p.m. in lieu of FOX's Hell's Kitchen, from late 2014 until 2014, and has since programmed NewsNow simulcasts in its place.

Digital broadcasting
On August 1, 2008, HCP launched a high-definition feed of its main programming on HDP, making Rogatia only the third Caribbean territory (after Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands) to have a digital subchannel. HCP multiplexed its digital signal on channel 3 on November 30, 2009; because of technical limitations, only the main channel is carried in 1080i, while the rest are transmitted in 480i letterboxed fullscreen. HCP's sister stations are assigned their own independent HD feeds on channels 14.2, 22–24, 27, and 28.

International airings
HCP's main channel, and HCP NewsNow, are carried on cable systems across the Caribbean. Select programming from HCP's local schedule will also be shown on a syndicated package called PeacheZ (a pronunciation of its former call letters, ZHCP, spelled backwards); originally planned for 2011, it is now scheduled for a July 2015 launch in select U.S./Canadian markets. Both initiatives are joint ventures with the Caribbean Media Corporation (cmc); Trinidad's Columbus Communications; Britain's Virgin Media; France Télévisions; Tribune Broadcasting, Weigel Broadcasting, and Comcast in the U.S.; and Rogatia media company Skouras.

Slogans

 * All-New, All-You (September 1, 1964 – March 31, 1965)
 * This is ZHCP: TV of the Atlantic (September 1, 1964 – March 31, 1965)
 * Take a Swim (April 1, 1965 – February 20, 1966)
 * Everyone's Watching (September 1978–August 1988)
 * The Z...stands for "Zap" (November 1984 – 1986)
 * There's Something Going On (September 1986–August 1990)
 * The Best TV in Town (August 1990–April 1994)
 * The One You're With (April 1994 – 2001)
 * Here's Looking at You (2001–July 2008. "After 40 Years..." was added to this for the station's 40th anniversary in 2004)
 * Pop Right In. (August 1, 2008 – February 8, 2009)
 * The Place to Be (February 9–March 6, 2009)
 * Right Where We Belong (March 7, 2009 – September 30, 2009)
 *  belong  (October 1, 2009 – November 9, 2014)
 * TV Nation (November 10, 2014–present)