Having to face odds and opposition is no news for Super One. But on 10 August, the station had to face the fury of the skies.

The previous day, when the station was due to celebrate its 15th anniversary with open-air entertainment, on what is usually one of the hottest days, of the year, 10 August, the heavens opened.

Undaunted, the Super One team joined forces and in just 15 minutes, collected all the chairs and stage from the open air, carried out some quick changes to the main studio and held the celebration there. And went out live.

That shows the loyalty that binds the workforce together with its audience.

Visiting the Labour Party’s station after a lapse of some months, the place is unrecognisable. Managing director Michael Vella Haber proudly shows off the new construction work that has been going on: the station will soon have seven editing suites and four complete television studios.

All the work, from construction to plastering, to parquet laying and all electrical work has been done in-house, as was the construction of television studio sets for the October schedule.

Underlying all this were two fundamental decisions, which will impact on the station’s future.

Fifteen months ago, when he took over the management of the station, Mr Vella Haber and the station’s board set up a working group to study the fundamentals of the station and to set it on a steady financial basis. To reach financial stability, as in any other company, some restructuring and re-deployment was required, as well as a cool, hard look at work practices. All managers were given new duties. There was no downsizing, or lay-offs.

After that, the station started upgrading its technical side, very important in view of today’s continuing advances, where every few years one has to embrace new technology or be left by the wayside.

The first section of Super One to get the treatment was radio, which was automated by September 2005. The radio is still not where it should be, Mr Vella Haber said, as he would prefer, for instance, to maximise even further these enhanced capabilities. Though obviously falling short of being fully automated, the station prides itself that even at added cost it provides a personal link to listeners during the night, although this comes at a price that has to be paid by its personnel.

In the course of the past year the television section has been upgraded.

Here, again, the strategy was based not just on construction and increasing facilities but also on streamlining the operation.

This is clearly the apple of Mr Vella Haber’s eye: the creation of a totally new, centralised and fully automated system, which will do away with all the unnecessary messy handling of tapes, together with the additional obsolete work practice that the person who shot the tape has a certain kind of possession over it, as well as the equally negative effect when a tape is copied, as it deducts from the quality of the picture.

The station now has a central system where all reportages can be downloaded and used by all editors in the station, instead of just the crew who shot the reportage, and the editor. The quality of this stored digital recording is much better than the tape system and reduces loss when being transferred after production and the final airing.

This, in turn, is the station’s first phase in its ongoing digitisation process where still a lot to be done. It has laid the foundations for this migration, but it still has to address further issues in production before tackling the free to air transmission migration in digital format; the latter will once more present itself by way of a hefty financial hurdle. In fact, as from October, Super One will be delivering all its content in digital format to network operators, but will still transmit in a free to air status in analogue format. Full digital transmission in a free to air status still awaits hefty investment by the station.

Phase one of this migration will allow it to fully automate its transmission and hence the television schedule

With this caveat, the picture quality of Super One, even though broadcast free to air in analogue, should be better in the coming season, while viewers on pay networks should have even better picture quality.

The second change is in the station’s approach to its financial fundamentals.

The station, which currently employs some 47 full timers plus a host of part-time workers, has registered a profit for the second successive year. This is contrary to common perception and derives solely from operations.

The station, contrary to what was being done in past years, has decided to try and do most of its productions in-house and co-produce the rest, rather than farming them out.

Besides allowing better production quality control, this also means the station will have better control on advertising rates than it would if it were to outsource production or sell air-time, which would normally be met in part by providing advertising space to third parties resulting in rate card undercutting.

The station has once more chosen to train all its employees in-house, rather than employing already trained personnel. This way, Mr Vella Haber maintains, its new employees get to understand better the station’s ethos and work practices.

The October schedule is almost ready. It will be somewhat of a risk, a challenge, not just on the financial or advertising side, but also because of the stress that coping with so many programmes will create for the whole workforce.

The October schedule will hardly have any repeats. The station will open with a live breakfast show, followed by teleshopping productions: from 11.30 up to the 11pm news, productions will be original and varied.

After the 11pm news, current affairs programmes will be repeated on some days, while on a couple of other days it will air a couple of short original discussion programmes, which will take viewers to midnight or slightly past.

The station will start repeating its schedule during the night, this time around however, it will be better equipped to vary its night transmission at its leisure because of the newly embraced system.

Come October it will present its viewers a co-produced drama by the name of Gizelle. This production is the brainchild of of four people, who have been sweating over the script for the last two years. Filming and editing are currently underway and all involved are following a gruelling schedule to ensure that the October deadline is met.

There will also be the return of some ‘old’ faces; such as Simone Cini who will have two 20-minute programmes a week.

I asked Mr Vella Haber whether the fact that a political party owns the station impinges on its independence.

Mr Vella Haber said the station tries very hard to be objective, and truth is, anyway, somewhat subjective. The station strives to present all the different angles on an issue, but at the same time, he admitted, the station is subject to being perceived by some sectors as being biased, while others think that it is not putting the party’s point of view across effectively enough.

“We try and report facts,” Mr Vella Haber concluded, “not conclusions, and let the people decide.”