Sky Television Closedowns and Test Cards

When my family first had Satellite TV in 1991, I was only 11 and the new system fascinated me. I can remember being up late one night and seeing what happened after Sky One closed down. I can remember seeing a test card on Sky One (this would be early 1991) and from what I can recall, it wasn't the PM5544 or the FuBK- I also recall seeing the same test card on Eurosport.

I found a video of the FuBK test card on Sky One, which can be accessed below. I was surprised to find this as I had no idea the FuBk was ever used by BSkyB. I can recall seeing it on German satellite channels, though. The test card I recall from Sky One and Eurosport, though, was neither - has anyone got any ideas what it was?

I have also wondered when all of Sky's channels began 24-hour broadcasting. I can never remember the year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URMLN6QNVJk

Some of Sky's channels are not yet broadcasting 24 hours (such as some of the movie channels), and some only became 24 hours very recently (such as the Sky Arts channels, which became 24 hour channels earlier this year).

TVARK tells us that BSB used to have testcards when they closed down, and when it merged with Sky, these were retained (all except the Now one).

http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/skytv/sky_images/bsb/bsb_powerst_testcard_1990-small.jpghttp://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/skytv/sky_images/bsb/bsb_moviech_testcard_1990-small.jpghttp://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/skytv/sky_images/bsb/bsb_now_testcard_1990-small.jpghttp://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/skytv/sky_images/bsb/bsb_galaxy_testcard_1990-small.jpghttp://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/skytv/sky_images/bsb/bsb_sports_testcard_1990-small.jpg

EDIT: The Galaxy one was dropped too.

Galaxy and Now were closed straight away, so wouldn't have lasted longer than the BSB brand. I have seen The Movie Channel one rejigged with "BRITISH SKY BROADCASTING" added, I presume The Sports Channel got the same thing - not sure about The Power Station as that only lasted another 18 months itself.

Very true about the Galaxy one being scrapped - my mistake.

As for the Power Station, Movie Channel and Sports Channel, the testcards were indeed tagged with British Sky Broadcasting (as were the idents of the time).

http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/skytv/sky_images/bsb/bsb_testcard1990k-01.jpghttp://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/skytv/sky_images/bsb/bsb_testcard1990i-01.jpghttp://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/skytv/sky_images/bsb/bsb_testcard1990h-01.jpg

Ah there they are. Not sure how much technical use those testcards ever were though?

They appear to have been used as holding slides, with music played over them.

Can you believe they actually held auditions for them. It always seemed like BSB went a bit too far and Sky of the time didn't quite go far enough when it comes to quality of output.

Did all the BSB customers get free SKY equipment after the merger?

According to the Sky News report on TV-ARK, yes.

http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/mivana/mediaplayer.php?id=79afa16d2e40589bc13dc246fd82cb38&media=bsbskymergerskynews1990&type=mp4

I think anybody up to the point of the merger was offered free Astra receiving equipment - BSB equipment was then flogged off super cheap and I doubt any of this was replaced free of charge.

Thanks for the test cards - I seem to recall that those seen on Sky One and Eurosport were very similar to these, although they didn't have the pictures in the middle by that stage. I have seen no other test card with a picture apart from of course the famous Test Card F (and its successors). Parts of these BSB/Sky test cards look similar to the PM5544 - but without as much detail. I'm sure they had scrapped the centre pictures by the time I saw the test cards in what I think would be early Spring 1991.