Amicable

Amicable was a Robloxian premium television service owned by Lava Lamp Entertainment, launched on May 27, 2017. The service was once considered as the most formidable rival to the dominant roTV platform, however, the service was ultimately hurt by long-term disrepair. The service closed on April 9, 2018, and the website was taken offline on July 5, 2018.

History[]

Original service[]

Amicable's foundations were laid in October 2016 as LavaCable. Lava Lamp Entertainment created the service as part of their aggressive expansion into the Robloxian television industry, which had started initially with their 50% stake in rTV Max, and in more recent times with the announcement of other channels such as FMC. On October 28, 2016, the name of the service was changed to Amicable (a play on the word "amicable", meaning "friendly", and cable television). Lava Lamp describes the name as "what Amicable is all about; friendly service with the best in Robloxian TV". Lava Lamp also announced a slate of channels exclusive to the service: the new Lava Sports channels (1, 2 and 3), a talk-show based channel named Talker and a general entertainment channel meant to be the Amicable counterpart of rTV Max: Harmony. (Talker and Harmony would later be made available to other providers.)

On January 26, 2017, Lava Lamp announced via a press conference that Amicable would launch on February 17, 2017. However, this did not come to fruition due to technical difficulties. Following Lava Lamp CEO WeepinnWillow's laptop breaking in late February, the launch of the service had been postponed to later in 2017. On April 6, 2017, Lava Lamp secured a carriage deal for two channels owned by Roblox Networks Television (RN and MixTV), reaching the company's goal to have deals with all of the major networks at launch.

On May 11, 2017, Amicable's website began to display a landing page stating the service would launch sometime in 2017. That same day, Amicable passed the fifty-channel mark when a carriage agreement with Keegan Networks was reached, causing them to become the largest premium television service in Robloxia by channel amount, beating out roTV. Less than 24 hours later on May 12, Amicable hit the sixty channel milestone with the additiom of BloxyTV GAMES, BBCN, BBS Music, Hoot Kids, Kiddos and MN Europe.

On May 12, 2017, Buddbudd Corporation initiated talks with Lava Lamp Entertainment to merge BBS Player into Amicable. BBS Player, while then generally the third-largest premium television service, had recently suffered from a mass exodus of channels, thus making the merger a possibility. The two companies appeared to have begun the merger later that day, which began with the aforementioned addition of BBCN, BBS Music and MN Europe to the service; Buddbudd Corporation later called off the merger, but allowed BBCN and BBS Music to remain on Amicable.

On May 15, 2017 shortly before midnight, Lava Lamp tweeted a preview picture of the service, featuring the majority of broadcasters' primary channels. The company aimed for a launch as early as late May or early June, due to the speed of the service's progress.

On May 19, 2017, Lava Lamp Entertainment announced via Twitter that Amicable would be launching on May 27, 2017. Shortly after the announcement, the website was compromised, enabling people to access channels 101 to 159. Lava Lamp attempted to quickly redirect the domain to the Robloxian TV Wiki page on the service, but the service was available for approximately 20 minutes due to issues with the domain name provider, and LLE had to unpark the domain on their hosting provider to stop the leak. Following the leak and restoration of the site, the domain then led to a landing page with the May 27th launch date.

On May 21, 2017, Amicable became the first provider to reach 70 channels, with the addition of the RTC channels, which was slated to give them a 72-channel launch lineup (beating out roTV by eleven channels at the time) until the removal of the RTC and Hexahedron channels.

Amicable officially launched on May 27, 2017 to generally positive reception. The service's user interface was on par for premium television providers at the time, featuring basic looks and largely core live viewing functionality.

On April 9, 2018, Lava Lamp Entertainment, Amicable's parent company, had had its operations taken over on a temporary basis by rTV Networks, owing to personal issues affecting CEO WeepinnWillow. Before Willow started a necessary hiatus as the operational handover was finalized, rTVN and LLE opted to close the Amicable service. Currently, the Amicable website remains online, and channels are still accessible; however, its channels have now been merged into roTV, rTV Networks' provider of choice and Amicable's former rival. Existing Amicable-exclusive channels have been migrated as channels exclusive to roTV. On July 5, 2018, the Amicable website was replaced with the following message:

As of July 5, 2018, the Amicable website is no longer available. Go to http://rotv.tk/ to continue watching.

On July 15, 2018, the message was replaced by a more comprehensive message from roTV. Lava Lamp Entertainment still holds the rights to the Amicable name. By the end of 2018, the Amicable website had gone offline as Lava Lamp Entertainment allowed the domain to expire.

Rumored revival[]

As the fourth wave of premium television services began operation, Lava Lamp Entertainment owner WeepinnWillow jokingly alluded to a possible revival of the service; this would later turn into Willow seriously musing about said proposal.

On May 11, 2019, it was reported that Lava Lamp Entertainment was legitimately considering a revival of Amicable.

Channels[]

Channels on the service included Lava Lamp's own channels Joystick, KawaiiTV, Cartoon Everything and FMC (Fun Music Channel). Even though Lava Lamp owns 50% of rTV Max, it is not carried on Amicable due to that channel's roTV-exclusive status (as set by its co-owner rTV Networks). On October 27, 2016, a carriage agreement was made which would allow rTVN's free-to-air channels rTV, Rnetwork, and Blox News Channel to be made available through the service. On January 19, 2017, rTVN's premium channel Blox was also added to the service. Additionally, GTV, Roblox Music Television (now rTV Networks' Viva Roblox) and Knowledge (as of January 19, 2017; now known as rTV Life) are also carried.

On January 19, 2017, Lava Lamp reached a deal to have Buddbudd Corporation's networks carried on the service and on January 21, 2017, Amicable announced that Ketrell123's BLNetwork would also be carried. On January 22, 2017, Lava Lamp announced that they have struck a deal to carry JWR Network, and on January 26, 2017, Lava Lamp began negotiating with Mighty Networks to have their networks carried on the service. On April 6, 2017, Mighty Networks agreed to add MN2, MN3, RSPN, and MightyJr to the service, and Lava Lamp also secured a carriage deal for two channels from Roblox Networks Television, RN and MixTV, reaching the company's goal to have carriage agreements for Amicable with all of the major networks at launch. Viva Roblox and Toonman were added to the lineup on April 15, 2017, and four of the BloxyTV channels were added the next day. Three channels owned by TheMagRBLX's BBC Networks were added to the service on April 22, 2017, followed by two others on May 3, 2017. Exchange was also added that day, followed by the removal of JWR Network hours later. On May 12, 2017, Buddbudd Corporation entered into an agreement with Lava Lamp Entertainment where all future Buddbudd Corporation channels would only be available on Amicable and BBS Player.

On May 4, 2017, Amicable added Hexahedron Horizons to its lineup, followed by RTN1 a day later. On May 11, 2017, Amicable broke the fifty channel milestone when a carriage agreement with Keegan Networks was reached, becoming the second premium TV service to do so (after roTV). Hexahedron's Motion became exclusive to the provider the same day.

On May 12, 2017, Amicable added two more exclusives: BloxyTV's BloxyTV GAMES and Mighty Networks' Kiddos. BBCN, BBS Music and MN Europe, former BBS Player exclusives, were also added to the service as the two services began a (later aborted) merger, giving Amicable a launch lineup of 61 channels. The additions of Hoot Kids, Mighty Blue and B Talk pushed the number up to 64.

On May 13, 2017, Amicable gained an additional two channels with the additions of PBN and Clubclubtv. On May 15, 2017, Amicable added JTVLive to the lineup, and on May 21, 2017, Amicable added the RTC channels to their lineup, giving them a slated launch lineup of seventy-one channels.

Channels exclusive to the service included Lava Sports 2, FMC Classic, Hexahedron Horizons, BloxyTV GAMES, Cartoonito, ToonToo and Chillnet.

List of channels[]

Available at time of closure[]

Channels removed prior to closure[]

BBN - Closed by Buddbudd Corporation on January 21, 2017.
BBN News - Closed by Buddbudd Corporation on January 21, 2017.
Lava Sports 3 - Pulled due to Lava Lamp's closure of the channel on April 6, 2017.
RMT - Closed by rTV Networks Gavent on April 11, 2017, and replaced by Viva Roblox.
JWR Network - Pulled by Lava Lamp on May 3, 2017 due to what is now known as the Joshua World Corporation homophobia scandal. The channel's removal was officially finalized as a ban on May 31, 2017.
Bloxia4 - Closed by BBC Networks on May 12, 2017.
RT1 - Temporarily dropped on May 26, 2017 due to the currently unknown status of channel owner RTC following SuperLol211's industry departure.
RT2 - Temporarily dropped on May 26, 2017 due to the currently unknown status of channel owner RTC following SuperLol211's industry departure.
RTKids - Temporarily dropped on May 26, 2017 due to the currently unknown status of channel owner RTC following SuperLol211's industry departure. The removal was made permanent following Lava Lamp's acquisition of RTC and merge of the channel with Cartoon Everything.
Knowledge - Removed by rTV Networks on May 26, 2017 as part of the carriage deal for Blox Flickz.
Hexahedron Network - Pulled by Hexahedron Television Networks for unknown reasons just hours before Amicable's launch on May 27, 2017. The network returned to the service on May 28, 2017.
Symphony - Pulled by Hexahedron Television Networks for unknown reasons just hours before Amicable's launch on May 27, 2017. The network returned to the service on May 28, 2017.
RMC - Pulled by Hexahedron Television Networks for unknown reasons just hours before Amicable's launch on May 27, 2017. The network returned to the service on May 28, 2017.
Hoot Kids - Channel removed as owner Owl's Hoot Media closed on June 14, 2017, which also caused the channel's closure.
ToonamiTV - Closed on June 20, 2017.
Bloxia3 - Closed on July 2, 2017.
B Talk - Pulled by Buddbudd Corporation on July 6, 2017.
BBC One Robloxia - Removed on July 6, 2017 as the channel had been assumed to be closed.
BBS Music - Pulled by Buddbudd Corporation on July 6, 2017.
JTVRoblox - Removed on July 31, 2017 by Lava Lamp Entertainment, citing the channel's uncertain future and low ratings.
BBCN - Officially removed by Buddbudd Corporation on October 15, 2017. Replaced by rTV Fun on November 13, 2017.
BBgn - Officially removed by Buddbudd Corporation on October 15, 2017.
BBMN - Officially removed by Buddbudd Corporation on October 15, 2017.
BBS Channel - Officially removed by Buddbudd Corporation on October 15, 2017.
BBC Music - Removed on November 12, 2017.
DogeTV - Removed on November 12, 2017.
RNT24 - Removed on November 12, 2017 to make way for Al Jazeera Roblox.
RNT Movies 1 - Removed on November 12, 2017.
RNT Music - Removed on November 12, 2017.
Toonvision - Removed on November 12, 2017.
Bloxia1 - Pulled on November 13, 2017. Replaced by MN2.
Bloxia2 - Pulled on November 13, 2017. Replaced with the NT channels.
Mighty Blue - Pulled on November 13, 2017. Replaced with the NT channels.
RNT1 - Pulled on November 13, 2017. Replaced with the NT channels.
RNT2 - Pulled on November 13, 2017. Replaced with the NT channels.

Carriage disputes[]

JWR Network[]

On May 3, 2017, JWR Network was pulled from the Amicable lineup due to "homophobic" and "discriminatory" comments made by its owners Joshua World Corporation. Amicable announced the next day that Hexahedron Horizons would replace JWR on the service.

On May 12, 2017, rumors began swirling that JWR Network was reportedly being brought back to the service. Lava Lamp Entertainment stated on May 13 that "while we'd potentially bring JWR back onto the service, the network is currently the center of a massive ownership dispute. We want to have closure on that before making any moves", which confirmed that JWR had a possibility of returning to the service.

When a deal with Joshua World and BBC Networks was reached, which saw BBC Networks assume joint control of the network's operations alongside Joshua World, Lava Lamp announced that JWR would eventually return to the service depending on Joshua's "behavior" in the coming months. However, on May 31, 2017, Lava Lamp announced that due to the Joshua World Corporation homophobia scandal and Joshua World's continued comments against them, JWR was "permanently banned" from the service.

Hexahedron Television Networks[]

On May 27, 2017, Hexahedron Television Networks pulled three of their channels (Hexahedron Network, Symphony and Roblox Movie Channel) from Amicable just hours before its launch due to an aborted attempt to make the channels go Livestream-exclusive. Hexahedron also attempted to remove Hoot Kids, but Amicable did not pull the channel as Lava Lamp was not made aware whether or not that channel's co-owner Bloxia had agreed to pull it (Bloxia later stated that they did not agree with the decision, thus keeping the channel on the service). Exclusive channels Hexahedron Horizons and Motion also remained unaffected throughout the dispute. On May 28, 2017, Lava Lamp reached a new deal with Hexahedron that saw the return of the three channels to the service.

JTVRoblox[]

On July 6, 2017, Amicable announced that JTVRoblox would be removed from the service on July 31st, citing low ratings and the channel's uncertain future as reasons for dropping the channel. Despite JTVMusicTV returning to the channel on July 12, 2017, Amicable still removed JTVRoblox shortly after 12:30AM on July 31st. The channel never returned to the service.

Buddbudd Corporation[]

Buddbudd Corporation pulled their channels from many providers, including Amicable, on October 15, 2017, citing their desire to transition the channels to a subscription model, which has been criticized by many others in the industry. The channels never returned to the service.