SimTV

About
SimTV is a fictional TV channel, for TV shows created using The Sims games. SimTV creates a number of different TV shows, including Sim Brother, the hit reality show based on Big Brother, Sim Street, a hit drama set in the fictional neighbourhood of Riverside, Sim Sketch, the first and only Sims Sketch show, Crystal Town, a drama based on the lives of residents in a town which is currently on its fourth series and Sunset, a show following the lives of teenagers Amy and Ethan.

History
SimTV is part of the Sims 2 fansite Sim Media. Sim Media was launched on the 8th of June 2003. Sim Media's founder, Jon, opened his first fan site for The Sims in 1999, when he was only 11 years old. This first site was called The Sims News Centre and was a basic website created in Microsoft Publisher, made up of around five pages: one for a couple of wall/floor downloads, one for links, one for news, and a couple with information about the game.

This first site soon became Jon's second website, Sims World, where the very first series of Sim Brother was shown. Sims World was the first site of Jon's to offer more entertaining content, such as sims created comic strips, funny pictures from the game, and was also where The Monthly Sim was first lauched. TMS, as it became known by regulars, was a monthly ficitional newspaper with stories from Simsville. Each month there'd be several articles, such as the murder of Bella Goth and Bob Newbie's failed attempt to land on the Sim Moon, along with columns with interviews, fansites of the month and more. The Monthly Sim did make it to Sim Media, but as the site grew it was sadly axed from the site and replaced with more SimTV shows instead.

After Sims World had been around for two years, Jon gave the site up when he became more busy at school, however when he recieved an email asking if he'd like to help out at The Sims Xtreme he couldn't resist, and soon this site recieved some of his past work including Sim Brother and The Monthly Sim.

Apart from working for a few months at Sim Gateway Jon mainly just focused on The Sims Xtreme, but when the site owner decided to sell the site on to another owner Jon decided it was time to create his own website again. He'd started a new show, Sim Date, a dating game show, so launched Sim Media on the 8th of June 2003 with the new show and some other cotent from previous websites including a few downloads and a detailed game information section.

New show Sim Date was a hit with the few visitors the site was recieving. The witty and lovable host, Mr Love was the main reason people wanted more episodes. In the original series Mr Love became Santa Love for the special Christmas episode. Other specials of the first series included the children's special and an interactive special where viewers got to rate each of the available dates and choose which one to send on a date. They didn't know that there would be a big twist with the guy they went on the date with!

Rather than putting up one of the two older series on Sim Media, the first Sim Media series of Sim Brother aired soon after the site opened. This hit show has progressed wildly since this first series, which lasted for 5 weeks, whittling down 8 housemates. People couldn't wait another year for the next series so in between the 2003 and 2004 series the first special series was released, where six sim celebrities entered the house for two weeks, including the shows host Davina McCall! The 2004 series is the largest series so far, lasting for a huge 7 weeks, and with so much game content available for it, this series was a big hit.

When the Sims 2 arrived Jon couldn't wait to do the first series using it, so a Christmas Special was released where 6 moody teenagers entered the house to show them how much they loved the family they claimed to hate. Next up was the 2005 series. It was 6 weeks long, as the first summer Sims 2 Series, and throughout the series there was a total of 11 housemates and two other guests that didn't make it into the house. The last special series to hit our screens was a three week couples special, where the couples were forced to compete for the top couple position. The 2006 summer series saw more many unique twists and tasks, and was topped by the 2007 series. In 2008 the show didn't air, but hopefully it will be back once more in the future.

After a few months of the site being open, several new staff members had joined the team. Josh was one of these and with his plentiful ideas for SimTV he was put in-charge of SimTV and 'commissioning' new shows. Josh made two shows himself, The Cross, the first drama, and Celebrity Fit Club which was hosted by a sim version of Darren Day. Unfortunately, neither of these shows are available anymore. Josh was also a whizz at making custom content for The Sims, so he built up the sites small downloads section with new skins and loads of new objects.

Meanwhile Jon had won some hosting from MadSims.net in a competition, so the site was moved from it's old host, a hosting service run by Jon's freind, Marsell, to this new host.

Another new staff member to join the team was Mark who's first role was moderating the forums. Due to his commitment to the site he was made moderator of the site, and contributed in many ways. After being on the staff for a while, Mark decided to created his first show, Design Wars, a decorating game show.

The show took two teams battling it out to have the best room change and win rewards. It became very popular very quickly. Mark decided to take a break from the show, so Jon created the second series, but Mark soon returned with series three! Like Sim Date, there were interactive episodes to get viewers more involved in the show.

In early 2005 Lance and Stewart joined the staff, both to create new SimTV shows. At the time no drama's were available to view on the site, but now Drama's are the most popular genre. Stwearts show, Sim Street is about about the residents of a fictional town called Riverside. There have been four successful series of Sim Street, and their is still more to come. The show is drama filled and has great cliff hangers at the end of most episodes, and is one of the best, if not the best show on the site.

Lance's show Sim Police has had one successful series set around the staff of fictional Sim Hill Police station and not only follows their crime fighting and investigation, but also the problems of their personal lives. In the first series, bad gay Malcolm, from the XIA gang aquired a job at the station, to try and take the staff off the gang's case.

2005 was the year for Drama's as two more launched towards the end of the year. The first was Sim Hospital which was created by Paul and was about the lives of patients and staff at a hospital. Sadly, this show's second series was prevented due to problems with Paul's game. The second new Drama, which aired throughout Decemeber 2005, was Jon's first drama, Pleasantview. This is another neighbourhood drama based on the lives of the residents of The Sims 2 neighbourhood, Pleasantview.

With Drama's really piling a up, a show of a new genre was needed to keep fans interested. Jon created his fourth show The GAME, the first ever sims created quiz show, which was hosted by a previous Sim Brother winner, Darren. The show also had an interactive quiz with a quiz every week, where sites visitors could compete to gain points needed to become the champion at the end of the series. Staff member Stewart won the first series. The GAME was a trial series to see if the show could work, and it recieved mixed responses. It has been decided that The GAME will return one day.

New staff member Rob joined the staff to create a brand new type of show, a comedy sketch show, called Sim Sketch. No one was sure if a comedy sketch show would work in a picture and text format, but when Rob revealed the pilot episode that uncertainty was soon forgotten. Sim Sketch introduced us to funny and lovable characters such as Vicar Lorraine Sally Anne Jesus Praiselord and the Gay and Straight Teachers. Sim Sketch will be back for a second series with some familar faces and lots of new one's too.

Despite the large amount of drama's on SimTV now, there was still room for just a couple more, especially one's as great and well written as Crystal Town, created by Sam. Crystal town was another neighbourhood drama with interesting and dramatic storylines, and throughout its four series (so far) we have seen it improve and evolve into an amazing show!

With the community growing more and more, more and more shows kept popping up on the site, but sadly many of these flopped and failed. The producers encountered problems, or couldn't commit to the site and a lot of the shows went under. SimTV did, however, triumph a few times. New chilling and mysterious drama, Asylum (created by Jason), was a huge hit, and viewers are looking forward to its return in the near future.

Another two dramas, Like Minded and Obsidian also completed successful first series', and are setf to return this year sometime.

With the aging site comes aging staff members, and many of the senior staff became too busy to commit to Sim Media or SimTV. The site rapdily became outdated, and regular forum members gradually began to slip away.

With both SimTV and Sim Media losing popularity, Huckool (of Huckool Productions) was appointed as Media Manager to try and turn things around for SimTV. It didn't take him long to overhaul SimTV, tidy it up and introduce new features. SimTV was split into different genres (or channels) and newer producers were given a chance with a seperate broadcasting network, within SimTV. SimTV very quickly got it's popularity back.

Meanwhile Jon had decided to combine his final year at University with Sim Media, by choosing to create a new version of the site for his disertation. The new site is powered by a Content Management System (CMS) which allows more people to get involved with managing and updating the site's content. Hopefully with Jon graduating, and enthusiasm from new staff members the site will begin to grow and expand until The Sims 103 is released.

SimTV Shows
A number of shows have been shown on SimTV with a large increase in Drama's. Some of the key shows on the network include Crystal Town, Bob and Betty as well as Ollingdale. In 2009 it was announced that SimTV's flagship show Sim Brother was to be axed, due to a change in customer demands. A total of five series and three specials where aired between 2003 and 2009.

List of SimTV shows.