Free Bravo/Living/TNT satellite channels in 1996?

Butch Cassidy

Does anyone remember 1996 during summer getting a few satellite channels free on their telly? It would've been cablelink back then I'm assuming but I can't remember if it was on that or if it was somehow terrestrial.

At the time I had no idea how we could've ended up with these channels as we didn't have a satellite dish or anything. Our neighbour had two so I thought maybe somehow we got connected with them or something - no this makes no sense. A friend in school also had these channels.

It literally only last from mid May to around the end of July because I used to watch the wrestling on TNT.

icdg

Not on Cablelink at any rate, they never carried Bravo, Living, or TNT Classic Movies in that era. Irish Multichannel did in some areas though.

Butch Cassidy

We definitely only ever had cablelink when we this free Bravo, TNT, Living and one or two others maybe TCM - I think TCM came on after 9 in place of TNT. I always thought it was totally bizarre that we got these free extra channels. Other kids in school also had them as we used to talk about the wrestling that was on TNT.


According to Wikipedia the WCW wrestling show I watched had only debuted in April of '96 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_UK. Article does not give a source though. Just a coincidence that when a big wrestling shows debuts we somehow get the channel free for a few months?

We also had Cartoon Network again for a few months around summer May-ish.

Infoanon

Cablelink 'unofficially' carried a number of channels for short while for testing purposes on frequencies that a lot of TV sets could not receive in those days and you would have to know to search for these channels.

Fairly sure Living was one of the channels - it all came to an end when viewers / concerned citizens, complained to liveline about the 5 minutes 'freeview' of a porn channel that came on at midnight

Butch Cassidy

Infoanon wrote: »

Cablelink 'unofficially' carried a number of channels for short while for testing purposes on frequencies that a lot of TV sets could not receive in those days and you would have to know to search for these channels.

Ah thank you That sure seems to clear up my confusion a bit.
It would've been a small and new 14" portable Phillips telly I tuned them in on but can't remember if I did or if we could get the channels on the older TV.

Infoanon wrote: »

Fairly sure Living was one of the channels - it all came to an end when viewers / concerned citizens, complained to liveline about the 5 minutes 'freeview' of a porn channel that came on at midnight

FFS! :mad: I'm f'n sick to my back teeth of that. I can remember tuning in one of these free channels accidently once and then went searching for the rest. I wonder is one of the programmes archived on the RTE site so we can hear the whingers.

Minstrel27

Butch Cassidy wrote: »

FFS! :mad: I'm f'n sick to my back teeth of that.

There is a whinger on this very website.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055997629

Butch Cassidy

We saw that yeah. Tis an old relic of the Angela's Ashes days...



Does anyone know how one got Cartoon Network/TNT? Did you just tune them in on your satellite dish or was there a subscription or something? I'm not very au fait with how satellite was pre-George Hook.

icdg

You mean on satellite? At the risk of being wrong for the second time in this thread, I'd imagine they were part of the Sky Multi Channels package at that time (Living, at any rate, definitely was). This was a package of channels on Astra, headed by Sky One, that you could subscribe to with an Astra reciever and VideoCrypt decoder.

TNT Classic Movies was the predecessor of the modern day TCM, despite its name it also showed the now defunct World Championship Wrestling promotion.

On cable, Irish Multichannel (predecessor of Chorus) carried the channels in certain areas, as did CMI Cable.

Cablelink never carried these channels officially, even if they were tested in some areas. However all three made their official debut on NTL Ireland when the NTL Digital service was launched and Living will probably go down in history as the very last new channel to join the NTL analogue service (Channel 6 which became 3e having launched a few months previously).

Cablelink did carry some channels unofficially. CNN was on there (encrypted in Cryptovision) and they also tested Prem1ere in 1989 as they planned to roll it out as a subscription channel. There used to be a video of the Cablelink tests on YouTube.

I used to do a lot of retuning around 1995/1996 to see if new channels came on stream but never saw any of these ones.

Butch Cassidy

Karsini wrote: »

Cablelink did carry some channels unofficially. CNN was on there (encrypted in Cryptovision) and they also tested Prem1ere in 1989 as they planned to roll it out as a subscription channel. There used to be a video of the Cablelink tests on YouTube.

I used to do a lot of retuning around 1995/1996 to see if new channels came on stream but never saw any of these ones.

Is it possible they only "tested" in certain areas? I'm in Dublin on the south side, would that make any difference?

Butch Cassidy

Butch Cassidy wrote: »

Is it possible they only "tested" in certain areas? I'm in Dublin on the south side, would that make any difference?

It's very possible. I lived in Ballyfermot at the time and CNN was certainly there, was at the upper end of Band I.

I also remember someone on here from Ballsbridge saying they could pick up some foreign channels on their cable, it was suggested that they may have been carried for the embassies in the area.

mikeym

Dont forget eurosport was free to view aswell. (On satellite)

icdg

Karsini wrote: »

Cablelink did carry some channels unofficially. CNN was on there (encrypted in Cryptovision) and they also tested Prem1ere in 1989 as they planned to roll it out as a subscription channel. There used to be a video of the Cablelink tests on YouTube.

CNN wasn't a test. It was there officially (for years), but encrypted and only available to commercial premises. Can't remember when it left the analogue service though, the mid-1990s I think?

Prem1ere I remember alright. As I recall it closed before they could offer it to domestic customers. Sky Movies didn't make it onto Cablelink until into 1990 - it certainly wasn't there in February 1989 at any rate.

There's another one nobody has mentioned and that was the original incarnation of Eurosport. This was on Cablelink at some point in the period 1989- 1991 or so, I think perhaps during 1990 (but no later than 1991 as it was still using the original Eurosport logo at that point). What I remember being strange about Cablelink's carriage of the channel was that it was encrypted during the day but in the clear in the evening (after 6pm). I have no idea why that was the case. Cablelink had been carrying Screensport full time from 1987 and did so until it closed in 1993 so maybe there was an agreement against offering Eurosport and indeed Eurosport didn't arrive full time until 1994-1995.

Butch Cassidy

I loved Eurosport for the erm... Japanese wrestling

Infoanon

Butch Cassidy wrote: »

I loved Eurosport for the erm... Japanese wrestling

The original Eurosport (1989 - 1991) was a 50:50 Joint Venture between Sky and the EBU ie BBC/TF1 etc

It was able to show top sports - Formula 1, Six nations rugby etc etc

Infoanon

icdg wrote: »

Prem1ere I remember alright. As I recall it closed before they could offer it to domestic customers.
There's another one nobody has mentioned and that was the original incarnation of Eurosport.

Prem1ere - on the evening this subscription service was to launch on cablelink (after months of advertising / a few free views etc) the plug was pulled.
Prem1ere blamed Cablelink saying that they,Cablelink,never had agreement to carry the service.
Prem1ere closed in May 1989 ie shortly after the then FTA Sky Movies launched.

Eurosport - it was carried on Cablelink encrypted to 6pm for a while before been 'officially' launched. The plan was for one of the sports channels (ie Screensport) to be dropped. However Eurosport closed in May '91 after the EC made a judgement against them - a case brought by screensport!
Eurosport relaunched under new ownership and merged with screensport in '93. Eurosport reappeared on Cablelink after the protracted fees issue with Sky was resolved.

There was also the brief appearance of Channel 5 on Cablelink !!

icdg

icdg wrote: »

There's another one nobody has mentioned and that was the original incarnation of Eurosport. This was on Cablelink at some point in the period 1989- 1991 or so, I think perhaps during 1990 (but no later than 1991 as it was still using the original Eurosport logo at that point). What I remember being strange about Cablelink's carriage of the channel was that it was encrypted during the day but in the clear in the evening (after 6pm). I have no idea why that was the case. Cablelink had been carrying Screensport full time from 1987 and did so until it closed in 1993 so maybe there was an agreement against offering Eurosport and indeed Eurosport didn't arrive full time until 1994-1995.

I believe the original Eurosport was pulled around the time of the carriage dispute with BSkyB in 1992. It returned with the other channels (in its new form) in March 1994. Sky One, Sky News, MTV, Eurosport and TV5 were added at that time.

Infoanon

Karsini wrote: »

I believe the original Eurosport was pulled around the time of the carriage dispute with BSkyB in 1992. It returned with the other channels (in its new form) in March 1994. Sky One, Sky News, MTV, Eurosport and TV5 were added at that time.

The original Eurosport ceased transmissions in May 1991. Cablelink carried the black and white multi lingual Eurosport sourced 'channel ceased' card for a few days.

When the ownership issues where resolved Eurosport returned but NOT on cablelink who carried Screensport exclusively until it closed in 1993.

Ownership issues - EC found Eurosport in breach of competition laws and Sky sold its share to TF1 (from memory)

Infoanon

Infoanon wrote: »

The original Eurosport ceased transmissions in May 1991. Cablelink carried the black and white multi lingual Eurosport sourced 'channel ceased' card for a few days.

Thanks for that. I remember it coming back in March '94, there was a "This channel is reserved for Eurosport" card on 64 MHz for about a month beforehand. Same as with the other channels I mentioned.

Butch Cassidy

Infoanon wrote: »

The original Eurosport ceased transmissions in May 1991. Cablelink carried the black and white multi lingual Eurosport sourced 'channel ceased' card for a few days.

When the ownership issues where resolved Eurosport returned but NOT on cablelink who carried Screensport exclusively until it closed in 1993.

Ownership issues - EC found Eurosport in breach of competition laws and Sky sold its share to TF1 (from memory)

So what was the Eurosport channel we saw after 1991 on Cablelink? I can explicitly remember watching a channel called Eurosport at various points during the mid-late 90s.

Infoanon

Butch Cassidy wrote: »

So what was the Eurosport channel we saw after 1991 on Cablelink? I can explicitly remember watching a channel called Eurosport at various points during the mid-late 90s.

See Karsini posting above - the 'new' Eurosport was carried on Cablelink from March 1994 when Sky 1/News etc where restored following the carriage fees dispute.

From May'91 - March '94 Eurosport was not carried on Cablelink.

Butch Cassidy

Thanks. I just noticed this isn't in the Broadcasting History forum... oops.


I recall that period when there was no Sky 1 on telly. Missed out on Simpsons and wrestling. There was always one guy in school who had satellite!

Elmo

I don't know if this helps but I was in Killarney around that time and Bravo, TNT were both on the TV in the house that I stayed in, what cable company was in Killarney?

icdg

Elmo wrote: »

I don't know if this helps but I was in Killarney around that time and Bravo, TNT were both on the TV in the house that I stayed in, what cable company was in Killarney?

Its not on the list of towns I have that were served by CMI. If it was cabled in that era, it would have been Irish Multichannel. More likely it was actually MMDS that you would have had. Bravo and TNT were both on Irish Multichannel's MMDS service at the time.