In the 1970s, radio and television broadcast veterans Bobby Thomas, Bryan Waller, and brothers Arnold & Dale Kolasingh set up Audio Visual Media Caribbean Ltd, a production house that focused on producing commercials and local current affairs programmes. In 1991, AVM Caribbean Ltd went on to become AVM Television, the second privately owned broadcast station in Trinidad and Tobago, the first being the Caribbean Communications Network Channels 6 & 18. AVM was best known for its American based Public Service Announcement commercials and local programming such as Good Morning T&T, The Midday Show, Head Start, On Track, Caribbean Sports Digest, Words, Books & Letters, Cross Country, Painting for Pleasure and Distance Learning TV. Cable feeds from the Sci-Fi Channel and the USA Network was provided occasionally on weekends after station sign-off. Although the station had some market share, it was largely unprofitable and by February 1997, AVM was acquired by the state and merged with the then state owned International Communications Network and re-branded "The Information Channel". This move was to expand the state’s range of educational and information programming as part of an effort to fulfill distance education plans. Cable feeds from the Wisdom Channel and CCTV News China was provided after station sign-off. As a restructuring initiative by the state, The International Communications Network was itself re-branded to the National Broadcasting Network in 1999. Because of continual financial losses by the parent company NBN, dated programming from Trinidad & Tobago Television was shifted to The Information Channel in an effort to gain some form of market share but this move failed. As the years passed, the station and by extension NBN continued to suffer heavy financial losses. A decision was made by the state, and on January 15, 2005, NBN was shut down. The station facilities at Morvart was leased to the National Carnival Commission and the channel was rebranded NCC TV4 to broadcast the Carnival celebrations scheduled to take place in February of that year. Traditionally held on TTT until its closure, NCC TV4 became the main outlet for the National Lotteries Online Draws, including Play Whe, Cash Pot and Lottery Classic from January 15, 2005 until the Caribbean New Media Group, C TV acquired the draws sometime in 2009. Other local programming that were once on TTT moved to NCC TV 4 to continue broadcasting. In 2011, under the management of the Government Information Services Limited, the station was re-branded Channel 4 – OUR TV broadcasting cultural, sport and state programming. On October 2015, it was found that GISL was suffering from huge financial losses and was subject to bloated budgets, malpractice and political interference. On March 2016, recommendations was made to dissolve the state company and to dispose of its television station TV4. On May 2017, the state commenced the winding up process and to have the company fully shut down by September 30, 2017. On August 15, 2017, the station facilities located on Lady Young Road, Morvart had its final broadcast and was shut down after 25 years of broadcasting. The Channel 4 frequency is being used by the state to temporarily simulcast the Parliament Channel. Archives of GISL and its predecessors are now in the custody of the reinstated Trinidad & Tobago Television.
News and Current Affairs
AVM provided local news at 6:00am, 12:00pm, 7:00pm and 11:00pm daily with an international news broadcast by PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer at 10:00pm. As The Information Channel, it had its own 7:00pm news until it was decided to simulcast the popular "Panorama" evening news from TTT to cut costs. The international broadcast by PBS at 10:00pm continued together with news provided by Deutsche WelleNews Journal on evenings until the closure of TIC in 2005. As NCC-TV, news was originally broadcast twice daily except on weekends at 6:00am and 6:32pm, presented by former TTT news anchor John Victor. As GISL, the station simulcasted the 7:00pm Evening News and Good Morning T&T from C TV on weekdays.
