Satellite TV 1985

I believe they didn't show much after 7pm on Nick for a while, NaN should have launched in 1994, but The Paramount Channel arrived in 1995, rebranding to Paramount Comedy Channel in 1996 or so.



Apparently they were going to offer Disney Channel the daytime slot on Sky Movies, but as you say it didn't materialise. I don't know when Sky Movies started being 24 hours a day, but theres plenty of clips on TV Ark to suggest in 1989/90 it often didn't start until 2 or 4pm.

There could have operated at cost price to broadcast on it, while selling off spare space to anyone else. IE made a lot of money

but still Night on nick could have stared in Early 1994.

Here is some details about disney in May 1989
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/16/business/murdoch-broadcast-concern-sues-disney.html

I can see it now...

5 channels from the UK, plus CNN, Disney, Filmnet and TV3

In that case TV Ark has made an error. I was a presenter on Screen Sport practically from the 'off' in April 1984 and it was then owned by a consortium of American broadcasters, including I believe ESPN. I think WH Smith was a only a minority shareholder at the start.

By the spring of 1986 the financial situation was quite dire. I arrived at the studios in Knutsford (Media Communications) to record my weekly programme one Saturday to find most of my production staff were gone, along with my boss, Chris Fear. (David Cass had been in overall control at the programming level in Cheshire. I had little or no involvement with the London head office except for the final battle to get paid.)

I found out that the Americans had pulled-out and Smiths were now in control. UK-originated programming like mine (speedway and stock car racing) was now far from secure. I had a meeting with the guy who appeared to be running things (name I can't remember), agreed it was pointless for me to continue so I got into a cab and headed for the train back to London. Thus ended my broadcasting career.

It was all about expecting the development of cable back then, not satellite. You needed a large, expensive dish to receive our signal from Intelsat, which was after all primarily intended for telecoms use, and we were all looking to see the numerousd cable franchises that had been awarded come to fruition. Along came Coventry, Croydon, Aberdeen and a few others, then......

We relied on limited coverage offered by Rediffusion's old system which only covered small areas of scattered towns and regions, mainly those with historically-poor TV reception and it simply wasn't enough. The launch of the DTH Astra system used by Sky was still three years away. I wish I could have held-on but I'd have been bankrupt if I'd carried on.

Screen Sport was a brave start, relying on American programming from the investors who could find an extra market for their lower-end material, plus small-time UK-based producers, many covering motor sport. Some wealthy producers seemed to use it as a way to get into the motor sport 'jet set' and weren't too bothered about revenue. For us though it was our bread & butter. The standards weren't that high - initially we had to get Screen Sport to add the captions since we didn't even have adequate caption generation equipment but we battled away trying to get us and the channel established.

If the cable networks had come in the mid-eighties instead of a decade later who knows where we might have got. Ah well, it was (expensive) fun while it lasted and I have my own dark corner of the industry.

Shortly after I quit the business I discovered a namesake was working for BBC Radio Merseyside. Later he moved on to Granada and Sky. You'd think with a name like Rob McCaffery there'd only be one of us

Rob McCaffery (the other one)

Just wanted to know was the eutelsat and intelsat satellite catered for the uk ? it was for other continent as all I hear or know of is astra satellite was the norm in the uk... did people in the uk have intelsat or eutelsat...not sure if the sky channels were on them 2 satellite services. well heres a short eutelsat and nbc superchannelpromo from 1993 more eutelsat promo


[youtube:f26bcca0c7]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9LpTWlw0pU[/youtube:f26bcca0c7]

TV ark Has a long list of minor adjustment to be made, Alas until the new or upgrade / software etc comes about this will be the point when things start being updated, believe me there have a few lists all waiting to be sorted out.

If you like, I and may others would be VERY GRATEFUL, if you would like to scoop out your knowloage of the channel on this page and thus making sure people have knowlage about it
http://www.tvlivewiki.co.uk/index.php?title=Screensport

Is that Charles Hodson (now of CNN) briefly seen anchoring DW-TV's news at the 1:36 mark?

(Interesting clips, BTW!)

[quote="623058" pid="863002"][quote="rmc" pid="862867"][quote="Malpass" pid="861068"]

I have the highest respect for TV Ark and enjoy its contents very much so I'm delighted to help in my own limited way, which really is just those initial two years. The 75% WHS/25% ESPN split I suspect would have been the situation at the point when I left when Smiths assumed control. I wasn't aware that ESPN had retained a shareholding but it may well be true - as a presenter I wasn't involved in accounting and legal matters.

We were told at the beginning that it was owned by a consortium of US broadcasters. After nearly thirty years the memory's weak but I believe it was ESPN plus two out of the then three networks over there (I.e. pre Fox).

During '84-6 the name was Screen Sport as two words, with no mention of the European Sports Network. That came later after the rebrand as one word, the stylised S logo and the introduction of the TV Sport, Sportnet and Sport Kanal brands.

So in those first two years it was just Screen Sport. Expansion into Europe was starting through '85, mainly in the Netherlands and Sweden. I was given various European projects to work on, such as ice speedway, active in both countries but I was mainly involved with Dutch ice hockey and motor sport apart from my regular UK speedway and stock car work.

In the case of Sweden and Holland initially the programming was in English, with me in the Dutch case trying at least to pronounce the Dutch names properly so as not to insult the Dutch audience. One notable evening was a the Frieslasndhal in Leeuwarden when I found myself commentating on an indoor motor sport event raced on piles of dirt in a very large agricultural hall. The quad bikes were easy, then came.......indoor rallycross. Now all was going fine until the cars disappeared out through a door and into the car park where I was left to commentate on brake lights in the dark.

We also featured the remarkable Baarlo Autospeedway near Venlo, not far from the Dutch-German border. This featured various formulae on a 1 km tarmac oval - including backwards DAF racing.

During '84-6 this European programming was shown in the UK as well, I believe (I couldn't receive the station, ironically) so it was one station under one name, in English at that time. The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter used to provide a sports teletext service for the Swedish cable networks.

The whole ESN expansion came later.

Just one other point. It may have launched in Manchester, that was a week or two before I joined but it was controlled from London from the start but the programming was all presented and transmitted from facilities company Media Communications in Knutsford. Later it all switched south.

From May '86 onwards I was just a viewer, although not until I bought an Astra system in 1990 and could finally watch it at home. By then the stock cars had gone and the speedway was provided from Sweden. I was sad to see it finally go in '93. A lot of people had some high hopes,if rather empty wallets...

Good grief. I never imagined a former presenter would be commenting on my thread. I'm honoured.

[quote="SatGold" pid="863000"]Just wanted to know was the eutelsat and intelsat satellite catered for the uk ? it was for other continent as all I hear or know of is astra satellite was the norm in the uk... did people in the uk have intelsat or eutelsat...not sure if the sky channels were on them 2 satellite services. well heres a short eutelsat and nbc superchannelpromo from 1993 more eutelsat promo

The use of Intelsat and Eutelsat's low-powered telecoms satellites pre-dated Astra and the later Hotbird systems so no, there was no national allocation.

Those early Intelsat & Eutelsat birds were really intended for telephone use but could be used to carry a very weak TV signal. You needed a very large dish (3m?) to receive the signals at a four-figure cost, so the main audience was on cable, although some did splash out for the expensive home receiving systems.

Astra and Hotbird are DTH satellites, delivering high-powered Direct To Home services which only received 60-80 cm dishes and naturally became the main service. Astra was never a UK-only service. From the 1989 launch of Astra 1A Sky only had four of the 16 transponders (but still marketed the whole thing as theirs) with Screensport and sister WH Smiths station Lifestyle having a couple more with the rest of the transponders being used by other European nations, mainly German.

It was only with the switch to digital broadcasting that a set of Astra satellites were established for the UK market, primarily Sky, but as before they'd have you believe it's all theirs....

Hey, I'm just another TV enthusiast who got lucky for a couple of memorable years.