Bravo revamps at 21

More at: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds37229.html

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What heritage? The Bravo of ten years ago is uncomparable to the rubbish it is now.

Once again marketing attempts to change history.

For the majority of it's life Bravo was not just aimed at men.

Absolutely, in the early days the days the station was very 'classic tv' based with some good old shows and a brilliant ident!

Won't this be the third time they have relaunched Bravo this year? I'm sure they had the 'At Ten' phase at the start of the year, during which the channel dog simply said Ten. They then ditched this, reverting to the previous look for a few weeks then launching the current look for the channel. Meanwhile the programming remains as bad as ever.

21 years, that many, I don't remember it being that long, I presume the early years were broadcast on cable, admittably I've not watched Bravo since 1994 where they had that wonderful orchestral ident.

It must be early Cable or Pan-European Satellite, I know it's been around some time, but I never knew 21 years. We've only had it since 1997 on what was then Nynex, even then it was a mix of old stuff like The A-Team and the then contraversial Italian Stripping Housewives.

Note that Bravo 2 is a renamed version of Player, which didn't last that long, even though it started off as the brand name for all the Poker programing on Challenge, which still seems to be on Challenge. (Note NTL doesn't carry Player, so I'm not sure of Player's content)

Good God, I'd no idea that any other TV than BBC1, BBC2, ITV and Channel 4 existed until well into the 90s! I thought cable TV was a recent thing!

I think cable channels date back as far as the 70s although the kind of 'cable channel' were used to today only really began in the 80s. Satellitte television began in the early 1980s (known as Satelitte Television before Murdoch got involved and it was renammed Sky Channel).

It wasn't until Sky and British Satellite Broadcasting merged in the late 1980s that the idea of "minority" or specialist channels became popular. It was previously seen as a luxury. In fact considering the prices Sky charge these days, some people still see it as an expensive luxury.

There wasn't much competition for Sky until the cable companies went round digging up pavements and what not. Then came Sky Digital, OnDigital (which morphed into ITV Digital, collapsed and started up again as Freeview) and TUTV, now morphing into TUTV Anytime.

Fascinating fact time: ITV Digital operated out of Marco Polo House, the south London building that had once housed the lavish headquarters of the ill-fated British Satellite Broadcasting.

Yes, it has been through several incarnations. But then what 20 or more year old channel hasn't changed?

So is the marketing line "Entertaining men since 1985" really appropriate?