Fishcam refers to a

broadcast Broadcasting is the data distribution, distribution of sound, audio audiovisual content to dispersed audiences via a electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), ...

consisting of a

video camera A video camera is an optical instrument that captures videos, as opposed to a movie camera, which records images on film. Video cameras were initially developed for the television industry but have since become widely used for a variety of other ...

pointed at a

fish tank An aquarium (: aquariums or aquaria) is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. fishkeeping, Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aquati ...

Australia

Channel 31 Melbourne,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, had one of the more famous and long-lasting fishcams. The Fishcam itself was originally used as a replacement to the more common testcards, shown when the station had nothing else to air. Due to extreme popularity though, the ''FishCam'' became an actual scheduled show on the network. The station has also released several

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

tapes of the programme. The broadcast was accompanied by the music of unsigned Melbourne musicians. Rumours have abounded amongst fans that Channel 31 has played repeats of this programme while it has continued to be labelled "live". From 4 March 2007 the broadcasting of ''FishCam'' on Channel 31 has ceased. On 13 October 2014 ''FishCam'' returned at the new time of 9pm hosted by Luis from Lessons with Luis. It ran for 11 episodes, ending on 22 December 2014, when the fish tank was broken during the final episode.

Canada

When St. John's television station NTV first commenced 24-hour broadcasting in the early-1970s, one of its overnight programmes was a continuous shot of a fish tank. Bell and cable provider Rogers both have Aquarium channels

Denmark

DR TV DR TV is an internet streaming catch-up television service for people in Denmark, made by Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR). The service is available on a wide range of devices, including mobile phones and tablets, personal computers, and sma ...

used an aquarium as an interlude between 1981 and 1985, during long breaks between programming, with a camera recording the TV-Byen aquarium. The interlude was known as .

Germany

In 1992 when Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg (ORB) launched, ORB Aquarium was among the original programmes, consisting of a 30-minute loop of Fish. Music was provided by Radio Brandenburg (now rbb radioeins). In September 1992, the show recurved 10,000 viewers and a 37.5% market share, the highest value in the history of ORB. That led to similar programmes such as Space Night, first shown on

Bayerischer Rundfunk (; "Bavarian Broadcasting"), shortened to BR (), is a public broadcasting, public-service radio and television broadcaster, based in Munich, capital city of the Bavaria, Free State of Bavaria in Germany. BR is a member organization of the ARD (b ...

in 1994, which is currently shown on

ARD-alpha ARD alpha is a German free-to-air television channel run by regional public-service broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk. Its programming consists of shows made by Bayerischer Rundfunk, as well as from ARD and Austrian broadcaster ORF. The channel ...

& Germany's Most Beautiful Railways aired on ARD between 1995 & 2013. ORB Aquarium was discontinued in 2004.

Hong Kong

The ATV Network in Hong Kong also aired a Fishcam programme, in lieu of

test card A test card, also known as a test pattern or start-up/closedown test, is a television test signal, typically broadcast at times when the transmitter is active but no program is being broadcast (often at sign-on and sign-off). Used since the ear ...

after the station signs off the air. The programme's name was Telefishion (). It became an unexpected hit for the station, with the programme performing as well as, if not better than, the station's normal primetime programmes. The title of the show entered into popular vocabulary as one being incredibly bored.

Norway

The Norwegian public broadcaster

NRK The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (), commonly known by its initialism NRK, is a Norwegian state-run, government-influenced radio and television public broadcasting company. The NRK broadcasts three national TV channels and thirteen nat ...

first aired a Fishcam-style programme called ''pausefiskene'' (pause-fishes) in

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

in 1965, converting to colour in the 1970s.

Turkey

Turkish broadcaster

Digiturk Digiturk is a Turkish satellite television provider founded in 1999, with services starting in mid-2000. They provide both national television channels and their own channels, national radio, and music streams of different genres. Digiturk is als ...

broadcasts live fish tanks on their music channels under the name "Aquavision".

Turkmenistan

The state run youth channel Yaşlyk broadcasts a digital fish tank with the same piece of classical music playing on a loop after ending their daily transmissions until 6:55am.

Netscape

Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California, and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was o ...

has a

web feed On the World Wide Web, a web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors ''syndicate'' a web feed, thereby allowing users to ''subscribe'' a channel to it by adding the fee ...

of their fish tank, and for some time had an

easter egg Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian holiday of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are commonly used during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The ...

hidden in

Netscape Communicator Netscape Communicator (or ''Netscape 4'') is a discontinued Internet suite produced by Netscape Communications Corporation, and was the fourth major release in the Netscape line of browsers. It was first in beta in 1996 and was released in Jun ...

that would bring that page up when a user pressed CTRL + ALT + F. The Netscape Fishcam was the 2nd live camera to start broadcasting on the Web. The Netscape Fishcam went offline in the Summer of 2007 and has been moved to a new site with a new tank housed in the offices of Zetta, Inc. by its original creator,

Lou Montulli Louis J. Montulli II (best known as Lou Montulli) is a computer programmer who is well known for his work in producing web browsers. In 1991 and 1992, he co-authored a text web browser called Lynx (web browser), Lynx, with Michael Grobe and Charle ...

. The Fishcam easter egg was present in

Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curren ...

until 15 February 2009 and remains in

SeaMonkey SeaMonkey is a free and open-source Internet suite. It is the continuation of the former Mozilla Application Suite, based on the same source code, which itself grew out of Netscape Communicator and formed the base of Netscape 6 and Netscape ...

Similar events

Yule Log The Yule log is a specially selected log burnt on a hearth as a winter tradition in regions of Europe, and subsequently North America. Today, this tradition is celebrated by Christians and modern pagans on or around Christmas/Yule. The name by w ...

, which broadcast on WPIX on Christmas night *Orchestra (unofficial name), which broadcast on TV11 Thailand during downtime

References

External links

Fishycam.com
Two fish tanks streaming live, with a "time machine" feature to watch recordings if it's night time.
The Amazing Fishcam!
by its original creator,

* Interactive FishCam
FishCam Trap - Webcams + Interactive Trap = Catch Fish!

Interactive 29 Gallon Aquarium - FishCamLive.com
{{Channel 31 Slow television Television in Australia Interstitial television shows