Happy 20th, SkyTV
Wednesday, 4. February 2009, 23:42:00
No, of course I'm not serious. In 1967 Ted Short, the postmaster general of Britain, said we would blast any pirate TV stations attempting to broadcast to our shores out of the sky. The Thatcher and Blair governments didn't feel that way, this pirate station was being run by their mate, the Dirty Digger. Rupert Murdoch to the rest of you.
Murdoch was taking a massive risk, the official satellite station, BSB, was due to start transmissions any day and it had far superior technology, in fact it was completely incomatible with Sky, so the punters would have to decide between one or the other, to receive both would require two dishes, and that was illegal in Britain. They went on the air with no test broadcasts and very few satellite dishes installed, but they were first to air.
Then they struck lucky. BSB was delayed, giving Sky establishment time, and they used the time well spending a fortune on first-run movies; they studied the BSB schedules and developed alternative programmes for everything the competition was going to offer. By the time BSB hit the ether Sky had already established the principle of paying-to-watch-commercials with a much larger installed audience than their rivals. True, BSB suffered from far less weather interference, but the weather played ball and the difference was not immediately obvious, and true, BSB's picture and sound were visibly and audibly superior... If you had the equipment to see and/or hear it, but most Brit TV viewers just had bog-standard TVs and the difference wasn't really much of an issue, just as V2000 video failed against the better established VHS, BSB failed against the Sky behemoth. Although it was, for political reasons, described as a merger, the combining of the two companies into BSkyB was a complete takeover. The BSB satellite was shut down and its dishes became redundant.
Then Murdoch set his sights on the British TV establishment. He bid apparently silly money for the exclusive rights to broadcast football and it paid off, he is now in the happy position whereby subscribers are payng him the money to continue bidding silly money for more football; then he started buying the rights to established US TV series like 24, Lost, and, of course, The Simpsons. He also tried to blind side terrestrial TV by always being first with innovations. The downside of this was that once again he was imposing inferior technology on his audience, especially when they were based upon US standard TV rather than UK standard.
Today Sky is firmly established with its transmissions from distant satellites which break up in bad weather, much like Radio Luxembourg established itself with its swishy broadcasts from The Grand Dutchy over half a century ago. Funnily enough, the satellites that Sky broadcasts from and the programmes of Radio Luxembourg both originate from the same company, RTL, Radio & Televison Luxembourg.
Maybe if the offshore stations of the 60s had realised that all they needed to do was to get the backing of a country we'd still have Radio London, Radio City, and Swingin' Radio England. We do still have Radio Caroline though.
It's broadcasting from Sky.
Murdoch was taking a massive risk, the official satellite station, BSB, was due to start transmissions any day and it had far superior technology, in fact it was completely incomatible with Sky, so the punters would have to decide between one or the other, to receive both would require two dishes, and that was illegal in Britain. They went on the air with no test broadcasts and very few satellite dishes installed, but they were first to air.
Then they struck lucky. BSB was delayed, giving Sky establishment time, and they used the time well spending a fortune on first-run movies; they studied the BSB schedules and developed alternative programmes for everything the competition was going to offer. By the time BSB hit the ether Sky had already established the principle of paying-to-watch-commercials with a much larger installed audience than their rivals. True, BSB suffered from far less weather interference, but the weather played ball and the difference was not immediately obvious, and true, BSB's picture and sound were visibly and audibly superior... If you had the equipment to see and/or hear it, but most Brit TV viewers just had bog-standard TVs and the difference wasn't really much of an issue, just as V2000 video failed against the better established VHS, BSB failed against the Sky behemoth. Although it was, for political reasons, described as a merger, the combining of the two companies into BSkyB was a complete takeover. The BSB satellite was shut down and its dishes became redundant.
Then Murdoch set his sights on the British TV establishment. He bid apparently silly money for the exclusive rights to broadcast football and it paid off, he is now in the happy position whereby subscribers are payng him the money to continue bidding silly money for more football; then he started buying the rights to established US TV series like 24, Lost, and, of course, The Simpsons. He also tried to blind side terrestrial TV by always being first with innovations. The downside of this was that once again he was imposing inferior technology on his audience, especially when they were based upon US standard TV rather than UK standard.
Today Sky is firmly established with its transmissions from distant satellites which break up in bad weather, much like Radio Luxembourg established itself with its swishy broadcasts from The Grand Dutchy over half a century ago. Funnily enough, the satellites that Sky broadcasts from and the programmes of Radio Luxembourg both originate from the same company, RTL, Radio & Televison Luxembourg.
Maybe if the offshore stations of the 60s had realised that all they needed to do was to get the backing of a country we'd still have Radio London, Radio City, and Swingin' Radio England. We do still have Radio Caroline though.
It's broadcasting from Sky.
WIDGETIZE