Grid Broadcasting Company

The Grid Broadcasting Company was a planned Second Life broadcasting network. It broadcasted on the K-Ace TV. Its studios were located in the NTBI Celaeno Compound. GBC was generally abandoned pending renewal through the Broadcast Tower Network project. However, some promotional clips using the GBC graphics are still floating around YouTube. One of these clips was used in the SZYM Intruder taxi model on the passenger TV.

Channel Guide

GBC maintained the following channels:

• 1 - CCTV (if available)
• 2 - CCTV (if available)
• 3 - NTBI Public Access
• 4 - Reserved for DVR
• 5 - GBC News
• 6 - Documentary Channel
• 7 - SZYM 7

Since GBC predated BTN, it was supposed to maintain all channels on the network. However, when the BTN project was introduced, GBC was reduced to a single news channel.

Programming Lineup

All shows were planned to be released on Friday night at 11 PM SLT - every week there was to be a GBC News and either a Prim & Proper or Canadian Cooking (alternates), and every month 100 Throttle would be released.

GBC News

GBC News was the flagship weekly news program for GBC. Each episode was to be released every Friday night at 11 PM SLT. It relayed three categories of news:

• In-character roleplay news from the Second Life urban roleplay world
• Out-of-character roleplay news such as opening/closing cities, administrative drama, etc.
• General Second Life and Linden Lab news

GBC News was committed to being impartial and neutral in sensitive matters, and as such, refrained from making accusations in dramatic stories. Additionally, it provided weather reports, which were actually measured in lag and sim FPS. Participating regions hosted small weather stations which constantly measured sim statistics. Reported values on the news program were typically average values over the past 24 hours. Some impromptu forecasting was added, such as "lag fronts" and "script storms". GBC News also provided traffic reports from their Eye in the Sky traffic helicopter, which "monitored" autonomous traffic on the mainland. It was mostly improvisation, added mainly for humor.

Reporter Hosting Program

GBC encouraged roleplay region owners to participate in the Reporter Hosting Program. Regions that didn't participate were not mentioned in the in-character roleplay news section; instead, they were only mentioned in the OOC stories due to fair use limitations. If a region chose to participate, the following terms were put into effect:

• GBC News is given permission to mention the region and its inhabitants in its in-character stories. They are allowed to create minor stories to fill time, and to report major roleplay events that actually occur. City departments are encouraged to report events to GBC local correspondents.
• GBC News is given permission to rez a single object in the region telehub (or each telehub, if multiple regions are owned) that monitors lag data for the weather report and advertises the network to visitors. GBC is also given permission to use the region's name in the weather reports.
• Region owners are given a professionally-run TV news program for their residents.
• Region owners enjoy free advertising for their roleplay environment through a widely-watched news program.

There was no monetary cost to the region owner to participate in this program.

Advertising

GBC News offered some advertising slots during its advertising break to help cover the costs of purchasing & using stock music for its programs.

Prim & Proper

Prim & Proper was GBC's syndicated talk show. It was hosted by Will Szymborska and offered content similar to most other talk shows - commentary on current events, celebrity guests, and other entertainment. It was generally filmed and released bi-weekly. Guests were interviewed about their jobs, accomplishments, and other details about their real and virtual lives.

Canadian Cooking with Uncle DK

Canadian Cooking was a bi-weekly comedy show hosted by DriverKid Baxter. It featured Uncle DK, a somewhat-incompetent Canadian veteran. The show was focused around his slightly crazy cooking experiments, almost all of which incorporate maple syrup in some way. Occasionally, DK was joined by a celebrity guest.

100 Throttle

100 Throttle was planned to be a usually-monthly comedy show hosted by Nelson Jenkins, aaps59 Aeon, and Hal Berkmans. The presenters would have been typically faced with a challenge involving cheap cars or specific vehicles that need to be run through a variety of different tests. Often, the presenters would be limited to a certain budget, and instructed to buy a vehicle on the Marketplace at that price that fits certain qualifications. 100 Throttle was never filmed nor even scripted.