Sky Multi Channels - 10 years on

Hi guys,
Tomorrow sees the 10th anniversary of the launch of real pay-tv in the UK - the Sky Multi Channels package. Also sees the 10th birthdays of Nickelodeon, Living TV (Then called UK Living) Family Channel etc etc etc....

Anyone here a subscriber at the time? Any memories? (Remember how CHEAP it was at the time!!!)

Simon

I remember when it was called UK Living - do you know what happened to make it change? Was it the first UKtv channel?

When Living TV was called UK Living (obviously being flextech it had something to do with the UKTV) but was it part of the UKTV channels, were these around then? Why did they change it to living tv?

I also notice that Nick is having 10th birthday celebrations with their breakfast show You're Nicked going round the country and celebrating the tenth birthday of kids who were born the week that nick launched. They are also having old presenters joining them apparently!

UK Living was changed to Living TV to disassociate itself with the UKtv bouquet of channels which it is and never has been part of.

UK Living was originally launched as effectively a sister channel for UK Gold. It used to show BBC One daytime shows (Good Morning with Anne and Nick ISTR) as part of its output. However ISTR that UK Gold and UK Living were joint ventures between the BBC, Flextech and another company (Cox? Or was that BBC World and BBC Prime that Cox were involved in?)

When the ownership was rationalised and the UK TV operation formed - UK Living became a wholly Flextech owned channel - and renamed itself as Living to avoid it being seen as a UK TV channel?

Thanks for explaining that.

Is it the 10th Birthday of the UK version of Nickelodeon only?

Anyone remember the first DOG UK Living had?

It was HUGE!!!

And yes, one of the first multichannel subscribers here too.

I believe so, Nickelodeon in America has been running for at least twenty years now.

Twenty years? Dave Letterman's also been celebrating his 10th year on CBS. Since they was 'fired' (as he keeps saying it) from NBC

Apparently, when Letterman and co were still doing "Late Night With . . . " on NBC, sometime in 1993, Dave's
resident bandleader and musical director, Paul Shaffer (AFAIK) got into some sort of trouble with NBC bosses
at the time, and was either threatened with the sack, or actually was sacked. Because of this, out of protest,
and in support of Paul, it was decided by Dave to withdraw his production company "Worldwide Pants" from
the production of "Late Night With . . . ", and then signed up with CBS to host "The Late Show With . . . ".

To all intents and purposes, "The Late Show with David Letterman" on CBS is almost the exact same show,
as "Late Night With David Letterman" on NBC, shown in an earlier timeslot, of 23:35, instead of about 00:30.

IIRC, not long before "Late Show With David Letterman" came to Sky One in '94, it was one of the many
shows imported from the US, that was quite heavily promoted as a "Sky One Exclusive", and also as a
reason to tune in to the late night stuff on the then newly encrypted Sky One, back in the early days of
the Sky Multi Channel package. I think the only other US import to get more promotion than Letterman
across the Sky branded channels at that time was "Star Trek - The Next Generation." . . .

The Original 14 Sky Multichannels. It's a mix of logo's that I could find from the time and some current ones. Nick@Night obviously never launched.
http://www.mromega.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/skymulti.jpg

UK Living was actually changed to just 'Living' when UKTV was formed in 1997, and didn't change to 'Living TV' until 18 months or so ago.


Oh how well I still remember it. We got satellite TV in early 1991 and had a fairly slim Amstrad SRX200 satellite receiver which barely fitted on top of our bulky NEC video recorder in the TV/Video unit which didn't really have room for anything else. Since we didn't have the premium channels we paid no subscription.

When the multichannels package was first announced Mum & Dad were adamant that they wouldn't be paying for Sky and we'd just have to make do with the freebies. By 1994 when it had well and truly set in that that meant we could watch very little, they decided to subscribe.

The receiver they opted for didn't have an in built decoder, and since they decided that replacing it was out of the question, an external plug in decoder (which they were assured was 'small and discrete') was ordered (even though by that time a new integrated receiver/decoder - which would also solve the now crippling problem of the Amstrad only having 16 presets, cost very little more).

After waiting for weeks because of supply problems due to the huge numbers of people all trying to subscribe at once, the now infamous Thomson SVA-1 external decoder arrived.

Possibly one of the worst design blunders ever - it was intended mainly for people wanting to connect it to their decoderless Amstrad SRX100/200 satellite receivers, but was wider (and generally much bigger) than the receiver, and because of it's tapered top couldn't really go underneath it. So all over the country were Amstrad receivers being crushed and looking very odd by the huge Thomson decoders placed on top of them.

And biggest problem at all - the thing wouldn't fit anywhere on the stand, necessitating the purchase of a new one

The price et al didn't come into it for me at the time, but I'm sure it was *way* less than the cost of the family package (the equivalent package on Sky Digital) is now.