VSB-TV (channel 11) was a

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the ea ...

Hamilton, Bermuda The City of Hamilton, in Pembroke Parish, is the territorial capital of the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda. It is the territory's financial centre and a major port and tourist destination. Its population of 854 (2016) is one of the sm ...

, which served the British territory as an affiliate of the American network

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

. The station was owned by the DeFontes Group, a Bermuda-based company which also owned and operated radio stations on the island. On August 31, 2014, VSB-TV ceased broadcasting

over the air Over the Air was an annual mobile technology-focused overnight hack day event held in London from 2008 to 2016. The two-day event would include practical and educational talks and a hacking competition. Sponsors of the event have included the ...

due to financial difficulties; it had not launched digital operations in

ATSC Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) standards are an American set of standards for digital television transmission over terrestrial, cable and satellite networks. It is largely a replacement for the analog NTSC standard and, like th ...

, Bermuda's

digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative adva ...

format. The news operation continued online for one more year before DeFontes completely ceased operations.

Programming and newscasts

VSB's schedule ran an hour ahead of the

Eastern Time Zone The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a smal ...

without any delays, which meant

prime time Prime time or the peak time is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for a television show. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...

began at 9:00 p.m.

Atlantic Time The Atlantic Time Zone is a geographical region that keeps standard time—called Atlantic Standard Time (AST)—by subtracting four hours from Coordinated Universal Time ( UTC), resulting in UTC−04:00. AST is observed in parts of North America ...

and ''

Today Today (archaically to-day) may refer to: * Day of the present, the time that is perceived directly, often called ''now'' * Current era, present * The current calendar date Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Today'' (1930 film), a 1930 ...

'' began live at 8:00 a.m. AT, with the late local news carried at midnight AT. The station also ran '' Access Hollywood Live'' and ''

The Ellen DeGeneres Show ''The Ellen DeGeneres Show'' (often shortened to ''Ellen'' or ''The Ellen Show'') is an American daytime television variety comedy talk show that was created and hosted by its namesake Ellen DeGeneres. Debuting on September 8, 2003, it was pro ...

''. Other station newscasts were carried at 7:00 p.m. AT and 8:30 p.m. AT, with the ''

NBC Nightly News ''NBC Nightly News'' (titled as ''NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt'' for its weeknight broadcasts since June 22, 2015) is the flagship daily evening News broadcasting#Television, television news program for NBC News, the news division of the NB ...

'' airing live at 7:30 p.m. AT.

Discontinuation of operations

On August 29, 2014, the ownership of VSB announced that over-the-air broadcasting would be suspended indefinitely due to financial losses, effective August 31, 2014, whilst expressing the hope that the station might reorganize and return to the air in the future. Declining advertising revenues resulting in continual deficits were cited by DeFontes Group. A daily 20-min. video streaming of ''VSB News Online'' continued for another year, produced by VSB staff. On September 1, 2015, it was announced that Defontes Group would cease all remaining operations and lay off all 19 of its staff. The station's news director said, "declining advertising revenues concurrent with the explosion of electronic media had been our death knell", when DeFontes Broadcasting ceased operations completely on September 30, 2015, including its radio stations and online streaming.

References

External links

* {{Bermuda TV Television channels and stations established in 1991 Television channels and stations disestablished in 2014 1991 establishments in Bermuda 2014 disestablishments in Bermuda Transnational network affiliates