Saleria Public Broadcasting Commission

The Saleria Public Broadcasting Commission (commonly abbreviated as the SPBC) is a state-owned public broadcaster based in Qemshire, Saleria.

The SPBC owns and operates 10 free-to-air television channels (TeleUno, TeleDue, Tele 4, SPBC Comedy, TeleEdu, SPBC Sport, SPBC News 24, TeleCinema, SPBC K, SPBC Music), 3 pay-TV channels (SPBC Premium, TeleCinema Premium and SPBC Concerts) and 4 radio stations (Radio Saleria 1, Radio Saleria 2, Radio Saleria 3, Radio Saleria 4, and Saleria Sport Radio).

The SPBC is funded through commercial advertising, government grants, sponsorship, and subscription costs from its 3 pay-TV channels (SPBC Premium, TeleCinema Premium and SPBC Concerts).

History
The Saleria Public Broadcasting Commission was founded in 1935 with the launch of Radio Saleria 1. The station used to play a variety of programming, from music to news and radio dramas. This was changed when music programming was moved with the launch of Radio Saleria 2 in 1959, making Radio Saleria 1 a generalist-oriented talk radio station. Radio Saleria 3 was launched in 1975 as a classical music-oriented radio station. An additional radio station, Radio Saleria 4, was launched in 1980 as an all-news radio station. Finally, a sports-based radio station, Saleria Sport Radio, was launched in 2000.

The SPBC launched a television channel in 1959 under the name Tele Saleria (now TeleUno) and started regular broadcasts. At the time of launch, the channel initially ran for 8 hours (from 2pm to 10pm).

Up until 1999, a television license fee was imposed. The average television license fee during 1959 was around €10 per year or €5 per month. The licensing fee was used to fund the Saleria Public Broadcasting Commission. Today, advertising, government grants and subscription fees from SPBC Concerts, SPBC Premium and TeleCinema Premium are used to fund the state-owned public broadcaster. Prior to 1962, any form of advertising weren't allowed to be shown on television in Saleria. This was changed in 1962 when the Saleria Public Broadcasting Commission allowed TV stations to be funded from advertisers and sponsors.

In 1974, color television using the Phase Alternating Line standard was introduced to the general public. On that same year, SPBC 2 (now Tele Due) started broadcasting. This renamed SPBC's first channel (Tele Saleria) into SPBC 1. Regular broadcasts of color programming began around early 1976.

In 1985, the SPBC stared experimenting stereo television broadcasts using the Zweikanalton stereo standard and all television stations in Saleria began airing in stereo using the stereo standard. This allows SPBC broadcasts its programs simultaneously in two languages, one in Italian and one in English.

In 1992, the SPBC started a test trial on the HD-MAC standard, an analog high definition standard that was developed by the European Commission, for their experimental channel SPBC HD (not related to the 2005-2010 SPBC HD digital television channel). The channel only lasted from March 1992 until 02 April 1994. It was only available for public viewing in selected establishments (e.g. bars, hotels and restaurants), due to the lack of availability for HD-MAC compatible receivers and TVs. Some of the selected programming that were aired on that channel include the 1992 Winter Olympics, the 1992 Summer Olympics, some concerts and movies, and test videos that demonstrated the HD-MAC standard.

Sometime around 1993, SPBC 1 and SPBC 2 (and its rival channel Rete Tre), began testing the PALPlus 16:9 analog widescreen standard for selected programming, such as documentaries, movies, music videos, and news programs. These tests lasted until 1998, where it was discontinued in preparation for the launch of digital terrestrial television in 2000.

With the launch of digital terrestrial television on 01 February 2000, the SPBC launched digital versions of SPBC 1 and SPBC 2 and a news channel named SPBC News 24. The additional channels, which they were SPBC K, SPBC Music and TeleCinema, were launched two months later.

The SPBC started trials for high-definition television in Saleria on 08 June 2005 with the launch of SPBC HD and SPBC Sport HD. The test trials were finished on 10 July 2010 with the shutdown of SPBC HD and the launch of SPBC One HD (now TeleUno HD) and SPBC Two HD (now Tele Due HD).

Three new television channels, SPBC Comedy, SPBC Sport and Tele 4, were launched on 15 May 2007 on digital terrestrial television.

Analog terrestrial television transmissions in Saleria were shut down on 08 June 2011. All of SPBC's terrestrial television channels on DTT, cable and satellite began broadcasting for 24 hours after that date.

In 2012, the SPBC began to venture into the pay-TV business by launching three new pay television channels, SPBC Premium, TeleCinema Premium and SPBC Concerts.

On 1 September 2021, the SPBC announced that they are looking forward to rebranding the following channels in March of 2022. SPBC's generalist channels, TeleUno and TeleDue will be split off into two English-language channels (SPBC One and SPBC Two) and two Italian-language channels (SPBC Uno and SPBC Due), respectively. Other channels, such as Tele 4, TeleEdu, TeleCinema, and TeleCinema Premium, will be rebranded as SPBC Culture, SPBC Edu, SPBC Cinema, and SPBC Cinema Premium, respectively.

News
The SPBC has a multiplatform news service that's operated under the name SPBC News. The news service airs on television via TeleUno, TeleDue and SPBC News 24, on radio stations owned by the SPBC and on digital platforms. Although it is operated by the state-owned broadcaster, the service tends to deliver reliable news stories. Though it has been observed in the recent years that SPBC News has a center-left bias.

Radio stations

 * Radio Saleria 1 - generalist talk-oriented station with news and sports programming
 * Radio Saleria 2 - music-oriented station with focus on alternative, dance/electronic, indie, pop, rock, and top 40 music
 * Radio Saleria 3 - classical music oriented station
 * Radio Saleria 4 - news-oriented station
 * Saleria Sport Radio - rolling coverage of sport events across Saleria and around the world

Free-to-air

 * TeleUno - generalist channel
 * TeleDue - entertainment-focused channel that targets the 16-24 years old demographic
 * Tele 4 - arts and culture channel that's timeshared with TeleEdu from 21:00-06:00
 * SPBC Comedy - comedy-oriented entertainment channel
 * TeleEdu - education-oriented channel that's timeshared with TeleEdu from 06:00-21:00
 * SPBC Sport - sports oriented channel
 * SPBC News 24 - rolling news channel
 * TeleCinema - movie-oriented channel
 * SPBC K - children and teenager-oriented channel
 * SPBC Music - music-oriented channel

Pay-TV
All of these channels are ad-free.


 * SPBC Premium - general entertainment channel that airs programming from Adult Swim, Fox, and other channels
 * TeleCinema Premium - premium oriented movies channel that airs the latest movies, art house, foreign, and indie films
 * SPBC Concerts - concert oriented channel that's similar to MTV Live HD and Stingray iConcerts

International

 * SPBC International - television channel owned by SPBC that's targeted to Salerian residents abroad, featuring programming from SPBC and Mediaset Saleria.

History of SPBC's broadcasting hours on television
From 1959 until the launch of SPBC 2 in 1974, the broadcasting hours ran from 2pm to 10pm. With the launch of SPBC 2, this was changed to around 12 noon to 11pm. Then in 1982, this was changed to around 05:00 until 01:00.

With the launch of SPBC 1, SPBC 2 and SPBC News 24 on digital terrestrial television, SPBC 1 began timesharing with SPBC News 24 on digital television, while SPBC 1 and SPBC 2 on analog television and all of their digital subchannels still closedown from 01:00 to 05:00 until the digital switchover in 2011, when all of their channels began broadcasting for 24 hours on digital terrestrial television.