The early days of Sky Television

I remember many of the channel names on the Astra advert. I wonder what can be received on the Astra satellite nowadays. If I had the money and the opportunity, I would install a satellite receiver. I don't know if there are still many German broadcasters on Astra.

I can remember in the old days of analogue Sky systems that the German channels would be vary varied - the ARD channel appeared very highbrow and often showed videotaped stage plays and operas while there was also Sat-1 that showed very loud gameshows - one was called Tutti Frutti. Pro 7, I remember, showed a number of dubbed British and American shows. I can also remember RTL Plus and the other subscription German-language channel was Teleclub.

I also recall a Spanish-language channel called Cinemania.

Isnt most now on Hotbird 19?

If you had set up an Astra receiver and dish twenty years ago and left it unchanged, you would have found that all the German channels were still available on the same frequencies. RTL, Sat.1, Pro7 and 3sat are still using the same transponders as they were when they first started. You can watch them there until 2012, when the German analogue channels are closing down.

Most of the other channels have changed, although MTV Networks are still holding on to the transponder that was formerly used by MTV Europe. It is now the home of the German Nickelodeon and Comedy Central.

There's a fairly accurate timeline of the channels that have broadcast on 19.2 east here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astra_19.2

The ones used for the early days of 'Sky' - Astra 1A and 1B have been shut down and descended down into a graveyard orbit, effectively scrapping them.

That's an excellent table, interesting to see what has taken over from the likes of UK Gold and Sky 1 in that position, even if it's from different satellites

This interactive map shows you what's broadcasting where

http://www.ses-astra.com/business/uk/satellite-fleet/interactive-fleet-map/index.php

Thanks for the link - it is interesting to read what Channels have come and gone over the years. I am not surprised that the German channels are still on the same frequencies. I also noticed that TV3 and TV1000 haven;t been broadcasting on Astra for a number of years - I always remember hearing about how expensive D2-Mac decoders were.

What will happen with the Astra transponders when the analogue channels close down?

They will convert to digital trasponders. Many already have. One converted a couple of weeks ago from CNN Analogue to a Digital+ Spain DVB-S2 HD channel.

They will probably start broadcasting digital channels. Astra 19 is the home of several of the major broadcasting platforms in Europe, including Sky Germany, CanalSat France and Digital+ Spain, so there is always pressure for more capacity, especially for HD.

The German broadcasters will probably want to hold on to some of the transponders for themselves. The public broadcasters offer almost two dozen different TV channels, and I expect that they want to broadcast some of them in HD.

It sounds like a good range of digital channels will be available - I never realised so many countries' channels are available on Astra.

Google News Archive have started publishing old British newspapers in the Internet, some containing schedules from the earliest days of Sky Television.

The oldest one I've found is dated February 6, 1989, the second day that Sky Television was in operation.

http://i51.tinypic.com/k6ek2.png

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=-y01AAAAIBAJ&sjid=8aULAAAAIBAJ&pg=5380%2C1625066

Thanks for the listings. It was interesting to see that Sky Channel/Sky One was showing The Lucy Show as early as 9.00am! I always remember The Lucy Show being on Sky's fairly short-lived Comedy Channel in 1992. I also noticed Three's Company in the listings - this was the US version of Man About the House which was, unlike many American remakes of British comedies, was quite successful.

I can also remember seeing the 70s comedy series Maude on weekday mornings on Sky One in the Easter and Summer Holidays in 1992. It seems a lot of old US comedies were shown in the daytime because Sky didn't have many other programmes in its early days. It always seemed a bit odd to me as a kid seeing a sitcom at 10.30 in the morning!