The downfall of British Satellite Broadcasting.

[nanochickin]

This was a nice piece that i found on the Terramedia Site which i thought might interest a few people

http://www.terramedia.co.uk/documents/BSB_ad_small.JPG

Use this link to see the full size pdf image http://www.terramedia.co.uk/documents/BSB_ad.PDF

This remarkable full-page advertisement stands as a testament to failure of policy and foresight in the face of pragmatism and competition. It appeared in the American film trade paper Variety eight months before the planned launch of the Marcopolo satellites and nine months before the British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) service was due to begin. There can be no doubt, given the heading and the picture of Mrs Thatcher and what could be called her filing Cabinet, that the government wished to be associated with and even take credit for the BSB project.

In fact, the text of the advert shows how much policy-making was going adrift at the time. 'By September 1990,' it said, 'the British Government's plans for the future of British Broadcasting will become law. And when they do, a lot of people here in Hollywood will feel the effect. The plans are outlined in a document published last month. In a masterpiece of British descriptive understatement, the document is known as a 'White Paper'. ... As you probably already know, BSB will provide the first British alternative to the BBC and Independent Commercial Television. ... 'But the new White Paper proposes still more competition for commercial television, and opens the way for the early use of the two extra channels from BSB's satellites. There will be new methods of funding for the BBC. (Including subscription which is being pioneered nationally in Britain by BSB.).

The ITV network will be broken up. The minority fifth channel, with limited coverage, will be launched, but not until 1993. If all this comes as a bit of a shock to Hollywood, we hope it comes as very welcome business. ... So, although, eventually, there will be a lot of competitors following us to The West Coast, we see no fault in that. Competition, after all, is the reason we're here.'

No mention of a rival four-channel service which had been announced by Rupert Murdoch's Sky Television the previous June for inception on 5 February 1989, using the new Astra satellite that was launched the very week this advert appeared.

It was good news indeed for Hollywood: competition for film rights pushed prices up dramatically, with Murdoch personally blazing a trail among other studio heads for rights deals. (Murdoch had bought Twentieth Century-Fox for $675m in two halves in March and September 1985.)

Whilst Sky's decision to put movies on an advertising-supported channel did not find much favour in Hollywood, the decision to go for the simple solution of broadcasting in PAL, requiring viewers to acquire only a dish and set-top box, proved more effective than BSB's choice of a square antenna (the 'squarial' in the centre of the text in the advert)—which it had difficulty sourcing—and the government-imposed MAC transmission system, which required the public to invest in new television receivers.

BSB launched for cable customers on 25 March 1990 and via satellite on 29 April 1990. But it made insufficient headway and could not avoid losing heavily.

Murdoch was also losing money—the News Corporation accounts for the year to August 1990 showed that Sky made a loss of £95m in the 10 months that it was regarded as fully operational. Murdoch wrote off £121m of investment costs, which reduced the group's international profit from £211.3m to £120.1m. The British part of the operation saw its losses zoom up from £55m to £257m. Only the Movie Channel was making inroads, with around 750,000 subscribers.

The final curtain

On Monday 29 October 1990, Rupert Murdoch went to see prime minister Margaret Thatcher at 10 Downing Street and mentioned at the end of their conversation that a merger of Sky and BSB would be needed as both were losing money. No reference was made to the regulatory body, the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), which was about to be replaced by the Independent Television Commission (ITC). IBA officials were furious, rightly, that the management of BSB had allowed Sky to take over a publicly owned franchise that endowed a five-channel monopoly in direct broadcasting by satellite (DBS) on its holder.

On 2 November 1990 BSB merged with Sky Television to become British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB). The merger slipped through in the few days before the ITC took over. The broadcasting policies Thatcher had pursued (see above) were largely unimplemented. Cable, meanwhile, had suffered from the uncertainties caused by DBS competition and by adverse changes the government made in tax allowances for capital investment.

There was no doubt, however, about the winner in the competition that BSB had proclaimed as its raison d'être. The brand name is Sky. The squarial was abandoned, MAC encoding was abandoned, the public service remit of DBS was abandoned. And by a twist of irony, in that same month, November 1990, Margaret Thatcher was turned out of office by her political colleagues.

Of the other claims and promises: far from being broken up, the regional companies that formed the ITV network were allowed to merge and 'minority' Channel Five did not launch until March 1997.

It makes you wonder doesn't it. If BSB had launched first we probably wouldn't be watching Sky now and the NDS encryption system probably wouldn't have happened either

[Analoguesat]

The biggest failure was Thatcher and her cronies forcing BSB to buy their own satellite. (PLUS an inorbit spare!) The pathetic craft only had 5 transponders and with 2 tp's strapped together to provide a higher powered service only 2 channels could run full power on each satellite!

If BSB had launched first we probably wouldn't be watching Sky now and the NDS encryption system probably wouldn't have happened either

More likely would be that both BSB & Sky would have gone bust in no time. they were both in dire financial circumstances when they merged.

[Analoguesat]

More info on the BSB operation here:

http://www.selkirkshire.demon.co.uk/...bskymerge.html

[streetlighter]

So when BSB was operational how much would a DMAC system cost ?? and who would be installing them at that time ?
J

[Kay B]

@ Analoguesat

> The biggest failure was Thatcher and her cronies forcing BSB to buy their own
> satellite. (PLUS an inorbit spare!) The pathetic craft only had 5 transponders and
> with 2 tp's strapped together to provide a higher powered service only 2 channels
> could run full power on each satellite!

The problem was that only 5 transponders were available. Those countries which planned to build and operate a DBS system had been assigned 5 transponders only. German's TV-Sat 2 suffered from the same problems (4 TV channels, unknown and expensive TV system D2-MAC).

[merlodlliw]

The big fault lay in the non squarrel,delay,delay. Then up and running
boxes at £300 plus and having to sub.

Along came Roopers, awful pictures,Alba box half price, but 16 channels
all FTA, Yes SKY printed window posters 16 channels FTA no sub, one of these window stickers is still in an elec showrrom in Rhos,Wrexham.

And the Sky box less than £100. Aim it at Astra 19 degrees, mind you the pics were like NTSC.


Bob

[lincsat]

The DBS allocation was actually 3 channels. BBC wanted to handle this but it was put out to Private Bid. BSB ended up with 5 channels because they bought Irelands 3 channel allocation.

Sky actually launched with only 4 Channels - Sky One, Sky News, Sky Movies and a share in Eurosport. Other channels launched on Astra1 but they were independent from Sky: Screensport, Lifestyle, MTV, CNN and other non-English channels.

The Picture on a properly setup Amstrad receiver was actually very good. All terrestrial broadcasts were analogue at the time and many were prone to ghosting and other effects. He was successful due to it being free and first.

I do remember the initial press conference where Rupe promised that all channels would be advertising supported and subscription free - that didn't last long!

[merlodlliw]

I agree with most of what you say Lincan, however Sky launched with only Sky News on day one. The beeb ran a programme that night,television will never be the same again.

I am surprised you mention the Irish connection, colleague at work
who bought BSB from day one had five channels,three clear and two
on sub, one being the film channel,which brought them down when they offered silly money for films, with little return from few viewers, thats when they went bust.
I thought the Irish allocation was later, but I do recall Roopers saying
16 channels no subscription, profit from adverts, what a con.

I recall the trial on Astra for RTL Dutch, western films with Dutch Sun Titles the magic word Ill never forget, Roy Rogers shoots the bad guy,Dutch sub title DOOD.

As the saying goes, better Dood than Rood (better dead than red)

Ah well the good old days.


Bob

[Likvid]

I remember getting BSB when it launched thru a friend in England, i went to visit him and at the same time bought the BSB package with the squarial and receiver in a local satshop in his village.

When i got home i set everything up and called my friend in England to call BSB so they could switch the receiver on, 15 minutes later i had a picture.

It was great back in those days, can't even compare it to now where everything is so easy in the digital age.

I had to use a 3.1 meter dish to receive BSB as the footprint weakened a lot here in Sweden.

The picture quality was great and comparable to B-MAC which i received TV3 with on Intelsat 27.5W.

So sad they gave up, i had to cancel it 6 months or so later because my friend wasn't pleased to pay every month despite me giving him the money.

[lincsat]

Sky definitely launched with at least 3 channels active from Day one. Sky News had been testing for a Week or so. Sky one had been running for years as Sky Channel on cable (mostly in Holland), Sky Movies launched at around 6pm. Of the other English Channels, Screensport/Lifestyle used to timeshare a cable channel, CNN & MTV had been running a few years, so they were all on Astra from the official service date.

I remember on BBC's "Tomorrows World" program, a presenter on the roof manually adjusting a dish to get a picture - Yea right! He then interviewed one of the SES/Astra bosses from Luxembourg with the feed coming over the Astra satellite.

The big draw was a Boxing match about a week after launch, Frank Bruno v Mike Tyson IIRC. I know we were rushing around trying to get as many dishes fitted as possible that first week and really struggling to get equipment. There were a few Amstrad receivers around for £200, we did fit some other non Sky/Astra specific receivers that week, with pubs paying upto £750 to get the Boxing.

BSB was even worse stock wise, it was nearly 6 Months after launch before we had any stock to sell and with them using D-MAC, there wasn't anything else we could use.

Such a long time ago now - those were the days