Sky TV Network 30th Anniversary

On this very day 30 years ago sky network was launched:

* Sky Channel, later renamed Sky One;
* Eurosport, a joint-venture between the European Broadcast Union and News International;
* Sky Movies, a fee-based all-film channel;
* Sky News, a 24-hour news channel.

I believe you were also able to pick up a few other channels like The children's channel, MTV and Landscape.

It was an ambitious plan , cost over £100million to start with all because Murdoch never got the IBA approved contract which of course went to BSB.

The 5th channel, Disney never got of the table and we had to wait another 6 years. The Sky channel was overhauled to be more UK focused, which I have to say might have been a bad idea to start with, since over 8million across the EU watched the channel, but its fate was sealed On 31 July 1989, when it was was renamed Sky One and closed in most European countries.

Sky Movies (and their other channels) didn't have a subscription at launch, they were all free to air.

Those with the early set top boxes had to either buy new ones or buy adaptors when they did. Sky Movies went subscription in 1990,


No Landscape then, was it ever on satellite?

There was Lifestyle and Screensport as well as the German, Scandinavian and Dutch channels also on Astra


Not sure why you think it was a bad idea , there might have been 8 million people watching but the problem with pan-european channels is that they don't work in terms of advertising. There aren't many companies that can or want to put out the same advert out across Europe. Making it UK centric not only helps with ad sales but also makes programming easier and when subscription started years later it made that a lot easier too

Happy 30th birthday Sky News, Sky Cinema and Sky One!

and Happy 30th Birthday to Eurosport of course

Nope, Sky one never come about until July 1989 and even than It was called Sky Channel which started in Jan 84 and even then it history goes back to April 1982

Oh I'm so sorry my mistake Thanks for correcting me though really appreciated

Happy birthday sky news and any other bit of sky that has a birthday today

Yeah, it's only Sky News, Sky Cinema, and Eurosport that can claim today as a birthday.

And for the record, the channels on Astra 1A at the time were Screensport, RTL Plus, TV3 Sweden, Eurosport, Lifestyle, The Children's Channel, JSTV, Sat.1, TV1000, Sky Channel, Eurosport, 3sat, FilmNet, Sky News, RTL-V, Pro 7, MTV, and Sky Movies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astra_1A

Landscape was never on satellite as a channel. It was a block on Sky Channel, which then moved to Channel 4. It launched as a cable TV channel in 1991.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Landscape_Channel

Interesting info thanks

Let's not forget the rebranding of Sky One to Sky Onc as well.

Oh yeah that one

Onc, Tuo and Thrcc