Square Peg: the Dream of British Satellite Broadcasting - Episode Seven

If BSB is remembered at all, over a quarter of a century on, it's as a cautionary tale of one of the biggest disasters in British business history. But it could, and perhaps should, have been the shape of British television, if it wasn't for their own incompetence, their own rotten luck, and a certain Australian entrepreneur bypassing all the rules. That was the dream of British Satellite Broadcasting. Here's how it failed.
Part six: Squared Away. BSB and Sky teeter on the brink of collapse. They can only survive by joining forces or fighting to the death. Somehow they end up with both. Last in series.

[@derekhart3308]

I got BSB due they were showing Doctor Who from the start. I also loved The Galaxy channel showing superhero cartoons like the superfriends etc... those were the days...sadly gone but not forgotten still have videos of the shows stack in storage.. some still on video but most i converted to dvd. RIP BSB...

[@JennyAnnTea]

What a great series! I was hooked from the start! Thankyou so much for this!

[@lukebale8550]

Loved this series. All I remember was sky as a very young kid and heard about Squarials and the such as passing comments since then so good to see the full story. Was hoping in another reality, BSB kicked Sky out just to see the reaction on Merdochs Face

[@toffeetone77]

Excellent series👍🏻 i really enjoyed it. I was very young around 12 years old when all this was going on but i can remember begging my parents to get SKY!! Obviously at the time i had know idea or cared what was really happening. Also at the time i became really intrigued by the tech involved and watched the Astra satellite launch many times😂 very nerdy i know but back then this was a revolution in tv and as a teenager I thought it was amazing. Great video thanks for the upload 👍🏻👍🏻 📡

[@shrillbert]

In another prime example of the unfairness of life, Sam Chisholm managed to outlive ASG by nearly a year. ASG died in October of 2017, Chisholm died in July 2018.

[@stuartkenny7430]

To give you an idea of what a crook Alan Bond was, he moved to Fremantle near Perth from Hammersmith, London when he was 12, when he was 14, he was charged with stealing and again when he was 18 when he was spotted by Fremantle police roaming the streets wearing State Electricity Commission overalls and carrying tools, Bond's father Frank told friends he was worried young Alan would either end up becoming Australia's richest man or end up in prison. Frank ended up being right on both counts.

[@BobtheFishProductions]

In the triumvirate of Australian money monsters, he's the comedy one. Kerry Packer is the Old Testament God and Rupert Murdoch is the Devil.

[@stuartkenny7430]

@@BobtheFishProductions Another example of unscrupulous behaviour was Bond buying Thorn EMI's film division in May 1986 for £125 million, before selling it to The Cannon Group a week later for £175 million, making a £50 million profit for Bond while Thorn EMI's original shareholders got absolutely nothing, they were livid.

[@stuartkenny7430]

@@BobtheFishProductions Alan Bond died on June 2nd 2015 in hospital in a suburb of Perth called Murdoch, named after the academic and essayist Sir Walter Logie Forbes Murdoch, who just happened to be the great uncle of Rupert Murdoch. You couldn't make it up.

[@briansergeant]

"You only get one Alan Bond in your lifetime, and I've had mine!” - Kerry Packer

[@BlackcountrytshirtsOFFICIAL]

This series was brillant, a loevly trip done meory lane as a fresh faced teen. Thanks.

[@jakubwidlarz]

Everything would've been so much different if BSB won the Football League rights in 1988. God damn you Greg Dyke!

[@castle6742]

wold it ?

[@matthew1hyndman]

I’ve come to suspect that the Power Station (and The Sport And Movie channel in their BSB form) limped onto till April because of Satellite capacity on Astra When the merger took place, Astra 1A was full so Sky would have to wait till Astra 1B was brought online in April 1991 (launched in March 1991, but would have needed inflight testing before going live) before they could launch the new channel (Sky Sports and the Movie Channel) on Astra. I therefore think the decision was taken not to give the Marco Polo an superior Movie Service until Astra viewer could have access both channels, and they weren’t going to rebrand the Sport service until it could be launch on Astra.

[@danielnesbitt9565]

A Sports Channel program card was broadcast during a test transmission on Astra 1B on 15th April 1991: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jqaalWufp9hjhK8

[@MagnusFlynx]

Great series, thanks for this.

[@timg5tm941]

Superb series. Thank you.

[@stevewaldock4379]

Very interesting series, also very sad.

[@ExpoAviation]

I watched the series with its first run on the other site and was really annoyed the first time, still am after a second helping over here, not angry with you of course but angry and baffled that the government never stopped Sky when it first started broadcasting. Sky was pretty much "Pirate TV" and unlike the "Pirate" radio stations of the time which were raided/sunk/stopped by any means, Sky was allowed to continue on and even expand. Had the authorities stepped in at the beginning then BSB would have been able to prosper and lets face it, without Sky, the UK itself would be very different (think about it, the Premier League might still have formed but several years later, the newspapers might not have held as much power in swaying public opinion which may or may not have helped in the B-word). Forget all that though, it is a good series you've put together and I still smile when I see my local "Squarial" hanging up on someone's house as I go past on my way to work :)

[@anonUK]

In the 80s, Murdoch controlled the Tories- and to a lesser extent, still does.

[@briansergeant]

SES Astra was the Radio Luxembourg of television. Sky was it’s Radio Caroline.

[@1990chrism]

I do wonder what part the non-sky owned FTA channels played in all of this and in the relative success of Sky over BSB. Sky advertised their offering as a '5 channel service' post merger, but surely this wasn't the whole picture as there was a number of other channels a dish pointed at Astra could get, even if they weren't sky's.

[@mattgeldart519]

Yes - back at the beginning there were 14 channels on Astra 19,2 (if you discount the two in D2MAC). Of those, most were free or partially free - Available in English were Screensport, Eurosport (these two later merged), Lifestyle (as with Screensport, a part of WH Smiths), Sky One/1, Sky News, Sky Premier, MTV, RTL4 (née Veronica), Filmnet - (these two were encrypted for much of the time, but one could buy boxes to unscramble them); and the German language RTL, 3Sat, Sat1, Pro7 - some of which had very entertaining programmes, even if one didn't speak German... All in all, the choice of all this over five closely regulated channels was almost a no-brainer - and mirrored the Offshore Pirate days of the mid to late 60s.

[@GeoNeilUK]

Now, as I watch this, there's been news that Sky (now owned by Comcast) are planning to release a version of Sky Q based on broadband rather than satellite TV, so we may not have satellite TV at all for much longer. After all, why carry on renting space on a satellite when you're streaming TV down the internet.

[@GeoNeilUK]

@andrew342003 I might not have much of a choice. My landline now works over the internet, which defeats the entire purpose of having a landline tbh.

[@ThisIsARubbishName]

I was confused when I started the video and turned away to get something to drink and returned to a Nine ident! I didn’t know Bondy was that involved in BSB!

[@d2dar459]

Lol

[@areasquirrel]

And then came On Digital. Were they more or less unlucky/incompetent? Given who was in charge, I'd say more incompetent.

[@stuartkenny7430]

DEFINITELY more incompetent, especially with the football rights. David Cameron was their Director of Corporate Affairs, and he spent hundreds of millions on football rights that they DIDN'T HAVE, getting the footie rights was entirely his idea. He bailed out for pastures new just before ITV Digital collapsed, he probably saw the shit storm to come. Sound familiar? 😒 🙄 Anyways, this is a heartbreaking video. Hindsight is key here. Had the government at the time been 100% committed to BSB, they could have put a stop to Murdoch's plans. Sadly, Murdoch's press was brownnosing Thatcher's government at every given opportunity, and had the government intervened, Murdoch and his papers could have easily destroyed them. Oh, and the IBA should have developed the D-MAC technology in the first place out of their own pockets, it was THEIR idea after all.

[@Allanbuzzy]

Oh yeah and they had the same Marco Polo house building. If that was a bad omen, I don't know what else was.

[@robertcomer2767]

I so wanted BSB. Ordered it and the only box they had at DER was a crappy Ferguson one. I never bothered and within months it was gone anyway.

[@derekhart3308]

We was first to have BSB in our street/village well the Square areal was up I think I had a couple of months before getting the receiver I'd love Galaxy channel as (main reason why I subscribe to BSB) to get Doctor Who from the start it was to have a dedicated weekend to the series. After this later on UKTV was created, and Gold Channel again brought back the Doctor, and the 2nd time, we had well an all most full weekend of Doctor Who to celebrate the 40th Anniversary Those were the days.

[@jporritt]

If it had been someone other than Murdoch, do you think the British government would have taken a similar stance as to pirate radio? (E.g a bill making advertising on it illegall?)

[@Blubatt]

2:52 what is the name of the music that plays here? I really like it

[@applemask]

"The Unemployable Rub Oil On Her Coffin" by Babybird.

[@jordanhowell7798]

So now that Square Peg and ITV In The Face (2015) have been uploaded onto KZbin, will you be uploading The Kids Are Alright onto KZbin?

[@goodiesguy]

Speak of the devil, he just uploaded it today.

[@jordanhowell7798]

@@goodiesguy I know, I watched them last night.

[@robertcomer2767]

Looking back the IBA were utterly incompetent. All those rules imposed on BSB and up goes Sky and let do what it liked.

[@applemask]

Bugger-all the IBA could do about it without being given the power to regulate the sky.

[@robertcomer2767]

@@applemask Well the IBA and the ITC will never been seen again which is a blessing in disguise.

[@GryphLane]

@@robertcomer2767 Not really. Not when you consider how entirely toothless Ofcom is these days

[@MIKIEC71]

For me, Sky had the upper hand simply because BSB was limited to 5 channels. I don't know if the Marco Polo satellites could have been adapted to allow for additional channels, perhaps by switching frequencies on one of them to give 10 channels, but the whole "5 Channel Television" slogan was outdated at launch because Sky, even though it had only 4 of it's own channels, already had more choice with the addition of Screen Sport, Lifestyle, MTV, The Family Channel, QVC, etc. as well as the non-English language channels. The launch of Astra 1B in early 1991 would have almost certainly sunk BSB with the potential of up to 16 additional channels. What annoyed me at the time of the merger was that people were getting used to the idea of two competing systems and one enterprising company had created a split dish with 2 LNBs specifically to capture but signals - it came out literally weeks before the merger.

[@rtc9063]

I read somewhere that Ireland were granted 5 channels and there was a thought that BSB would have tried to buy those five channels. But after reading ‘Dished’ nobody seemed to have a clue what they were doing at BSB.

[@neilforbes416]

1:32 See this logo? It's *NOT* for a station but a 7-megahertz chunk of VHF spectrum on which Stations TCN-Sydney, GTV-Melbourne, NWS-Adelaide, QTQ-Brisbane, STW-Perth, TNT-Hobart as well as a few regional stations around NSW, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia which also transmitted on this channel. Ch.9 is merely 201 to 208 megahertz at near the top end of Australia's analogue 13-channel VHF band. As an Australian, I'm *utterly embarrassed* by our TV stations' *refusal* to identify themselves *PROPERLY* like the British stations did in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

[@goodiesguy]

In other words, Channel 9.........

[@neilforbes416]

@@goodiesguy A channel has *NO* physical entity whatsoever, while a station can occupy a *huge chunk* of real estate in a city or any one of its suburbs. A station's identification is vested *entirely* in the call-letters and *ONLY* the call-letters. The channel number is not and never was part of the station's identity.

[@goodiesguy]

@@neilforbes416 You keep telling yourself that buddy... It's Channel Nine and always has been Channel Nine, that's it's official name and what it's known as.

[@neilforbes416]

@@goodiesguy No, it isn't. The call-sign is: TCN(NSW); GTV(Vic); QTQ(Qld); NWS(SA) and STW(WA). They are owned by Television Corporation(Sydney); General Television Ltd.(Melbourne); Queensland Television Corp. Ltd.(Brisbane); News Weekly Television Ltd.(Adelaide) and Swan Television Ltd.(Perth).

[@goodiesguy]

@@neilforbes416 Collectively known by everyone as CHANNEL NINE or the Nine Network..... It's just schematics at this point, ask the average person on the street and they'll say 'Channel Nine'. You need to get over your obsession with this. You've posted this kind of stuff over at 45cat as well, and anyway, this video's about BSB, with only a brief segment mentioning Channel NIne.

[@jakubwidlarz]

Whatever happened to Ian Club by the way?

[@shrillbert]

He died of throat cancer in 2010: www.pressreader.com/uk/the-herald-1130/20100918/282918086791205

[@jakubwidlarz]

@@shrillbert Thank you!

[@robertcomer2767]

Well if somebody doesn't do something with Sky One, they might as well close it down. It's absolutely junk these days.

[@sienekebd]

and now it's closing down

[@stuartkenny7430]

@@sienekebd I wonder if Applemask will do a video in tribute? If you count Sky One's pre-history as Sky Channel and even before that as Satellite Television, it's technically been on the air longer than Channel 4.

[@briansergeant]

Yep. Sky One’s now on death row and will be replaced by Sky Max and Sky Showcase.

[@anthonyperkins7556]

BSB lasted nine months and then shot dead by Sky who merged it and left it out to dry whilst Sky concentrated on it's Astra Satellite projects.

[@Jaspacat1965]

The merger was 51% BSB shareholders and 49% Sky. The issue was BSB was a more expensive operation in an expensive building, using an expensive satellite on EU agreed frequencies. Remember it was British Sky Broadcasting, not Sky. The Sports Channel and The Movie Channel were the only 2 channels agreed to transfer over.

[@anthonyperkins7556]

@@Jaspacat1965 But BSkyB was determined to get rid of the Marco Polo 31 degrees West satellite position and focus on its main markets via the Astra Satellite, only feeding the Marco Polo satellites as a contractual agreement for a limited period, and eventually winding down those Marco Polo services, switching them off and flogging those satellites to the Scandinavians.

[@Jaspacat1965]

The reason why the Macopolo satellites were wound down was BSB were in breach of its franchise and the franchise had to be handed back. Marcopolo was kept going for 2 reasons, firstly to see if anyone would take over the franchise so a transition could be made and secondly so BSB customers would not lose service. As it was, no one came forward in the 90 days the IBA gave for interested parties, so BSkyB was given notice that Crawley Court would no longer uplink the signal. Ironically BSB did test Galaxy on Astra and was looking at the possibility of launching some channels on there, but the IBA found out and asked them to close the tests down.

[@anthonyperkins7556]

@@Jaspacat1965 BSB did not test Galaxy on the Astra Satellite at all, that's a lie, and it wasn't Crawley Court Winchester that up linked BSBs signals, it was Chilworth.

[@anthonyperkins7556]

​​​​@@Jaspacat1965BSB never did any transmission tests on the Astra 1A satellite at all, and all 5 BSB channels were uplinked from Chilworth directly to Marco Polo I and II with 3 channels from one uplink antenna, and two from the other uplink antenna , not IBA Crawley Court headquarters at Winchester, Hampshire.

[@darkhall8227]

so many channels come and gone from sky.. I have had sky since 91

[@danbarrow8499]

I’m