Back in say 1991 all we had was BBC One, BBC Two, ITV and Channel 4 - there was no way that my mum and dad were going to get satellite, because it was not needed.
Back in 1991 Sky TV was not the same juggernaut we see now in 2019. I think they only had a handful of channels, and no extra channels at all from the BBC, ITV or Channel 4, that all started from 1998 onward.
In 1991? Six channels from Sky itself, which were Sky One, Sky News, Sky Sports, Sky Movies Plus, the Movie Channel, and Sky Movies Gold (which launched that year, replacing The Comedy Channel). A lot of the famous channels, such as Nickelodeon, Sky Sports 2, Disney, UK Gold, UK Living, had yet to launch at that point. So yeah, not even as big as Freeview is today.