1986: BSB wins the DBS franchise

There was a consensus at the time that high-power satellites (like Marcopolo and its European cousins TV Sat and TDF) was the future.

As such, the apparently valuable satellite frequencies were almost treated as new national networks. The companies that would get access to the 4-5 transponders were carefully selected. Both France and Germany used the space for new public TV channels, as would have happened in the UK had the BBC been bothered to pay for it. The satellites were usually operated by the companies that were behind the terrestrial transmitters.

Medium-power satellites (like Astra) would be mostly used for cable head-ends, and I've gotten the impression that governments and regulators didn't really consider them an option for DBS. If that impression is correct, the relative success of Astra turned the regulated strategy on its head, helped by satellite failures, delay and the D-MAC-related problems.

I'm pretty sure that was the case because I think initially the sport and films were going to share a channel. Or maybe sport and news. Sport wasn't going to get its own channel, in any case, because as you say they initially planned three channels but then another two were found from somewhere.

I'm sure zigzag and movies were to share as video say ZZ screen during the day.

ZigZg was going to timeshare with Galaxy (as mentioned in the promo), and eventually did so, but as 'Galaxy Club' in the mornings/afternoons IIRC.

Now and Screen (The Movie Channel) were supposed to be full-time channels

Ultimately, they obviously found space to launch The Sport Channel and Power Station.

I think the intention was to carry 2 other channels (don't quote me on that though!).

Worth noting that Now, Galaxy and The Power Station (I think!) had to be made available to Cable operators (who had to carry them). In fact, because of the delays in getting the D2MAC receiving equipment to market, these channels launched 8 weeks before the BSB service was available to customers - and then repeated their first 8 weeks of content when the BSB service finally launched.

Not really, Granada was still at that stage in its conglomerate form of which the ITV franchise was only a part and the BSkyB stake very insignificant in the overall scheme of things. They likely viewed it a way of making some money back out of an operation which would have seen a lot of losses in its early years.

Ironically enough, BSkyB ended up with a stake in ITV some years later. I think they still hold around 7.5% of the company.

They also saw fit to continue with Granada Sky Broadcasting through all that...

Yeah, until ITV3 killed it off.

Tiny technical point - BSB used D-MAC (the higher bandwidth variant which had a higher data rate for the data component) rather than D2-MAC (the lower bandwidth variant adopted in much of the rest of Europe for compatibility with lower bandwidth cable systems AIUI - and which had a lower data rate for the data component)

BSB D-MAC receivers were capable of receiving D2-MAC transmissions (from the German TV Sat and French TDF satellites) with suitable modifications (usually just a replacement EPROM ISTR - and a mod to the LNB or Squarial to switch between RHC and LHC polarisation ISTR) I modified a Philips and a Ferguson receiver and had both a Squarial and a Dish and watched the Albertville and Barcelona 1992 Olympics HD-MAC broadcasts on them (with a modified 4:3 display scan crushing to 16:9), as well as the range of German and French channels (apart from Canal Plus which was encrypted)

Yes, before Sky/Astra launched there were a number of channels you could receive at home from Intelsat or Eutelsat satellites - Sky Channel, SuperChannel, MTV, Lifestyle, Screensport for example.


They didn't have any choice over that, it was part of the franchise. BSB wouldn't have existed without the the IBA offering that franchise .

It wasn't the only problem with their business plan, the expensive offices and untested technology of the Squarial were other two major flaws.

I get the feeling IBA were more to blame than anything else for the problems with DBS, Would this also be one of the main reasons BBC believed the cost were to much? I wonder what would have happened if the BBC would have been allowed to use the Astra.

What did happen to BSB Satellite>

I seem to remember reading that it was originally meant to be just 3 channels but either they got more frequencies (possibly using Irelands allocation too?) or the IBA's plans for how the service was backed up changed.

It seems incredible now that they had to have 2 satellites and used one just for backup, but then I suppose that was just following how things were done on the ground - 2 of everything