The Future of British television | Cable Television | British TV | TV Eye | 1982

[@jnbr7520]

Legend has it ,subscriber 521 is still on hold waiting to find out why the hell they were disconnected

[@Alfredromeothatsme]

haha!

[@davelowe1977]

I remember the rollout of cable. They dug all the major roads up and didn't put them back properly.

[@fatlad5090]

Yes they did another company had to fix the pavement and roads

[@georgiehogman2001]

I lived in a terraced house and they dug up the drain that came from my guttering across the pavement. They blocked the guttering and I had lots of problems with overflowing water. In the end I had to cut the pipe and put an outlet to run across the pavement instead.

[@jacquelinesmith8029]

Exactly! Cable Not Satilite!

[@Nick_80599]

BT had a few franchises, in fact they leased their Westminster and Milton Keynes franchise after 1999 to NTL later Virgin Media, BT made it difficult to upgrade them so those franchises were Analogue till they closed in 2013.

[@sjm2752]

Watching this 19 May 2020 UK with a smile on my face. From 38 years ago and looks so old fashioned. Wonder what TV will be like in 2058? No doubt people in 2058 will smile and think how old fashioned 2020 TV was!!

[@dominewimbury2039]

It was better then with only four channels. They had brilliant producers, writers and so brilliant programmes. Now look at it. Load of rubbish

[@sillygoose635]

no it wasn't, don't be so inept

[@europa2000man]

Between the 1960s and 1980s, Ireland got cable television in most towns and cities in the country. It was to broadcast British signals (BBC 1, BBC 2, Ulster Television, Channel 4 from Northern Ireland & BBC Wales, BBC 2, HTV Wales, S4C from Wales, depending on where you lived) as well as our own channels RTE 1 and RTE 2. By the late 80's, we were also receiving British cable & satellite channels like Sky Channel, Lifestyle, The Childrens Channel, Premiere and Screensport to name a few.

[@fatlad5090]

How remembers just having Two music channels VH1 and MTV

[@utl94]

How what?

[@sarjim4381]

Wow! All the way up to 30 channels!?! As an American, I've never unstood British television. By 1982, an average size American city had 8-15 over the air (OTA) channels. There were three main networks and then a bunch of local channels and second tier networks, as Fox was when it first started up. There's just no concept of a national TV channel like BBC, and certainly no concept of paying for a TV license. Unfortunately, most places have only one franchise cable company, so we became more like Britain in that regard. This kind of monopoly has lead to some cable providers to charge $50-$70 per month for just basic cable of 30-40 channels, and those that are real addicts can spend hundreds per month for hundreds of channels. The good thing is the switch to digital has allowed any OTA channel to have 2-4 subchannels, so now there can be more than 50 OTA channels. As the number of channels expanded, we have been inundated with home shopping channels, weird religious programming, and movies no one would ever want to watch again. It's interesting that the concept of an internet at a line per second was looking into the hazy future.

[@pit_stop77]

But, was there anything worth watching even back then? Like today most of it is mind blowing dross. Having said that, I grew up in Ireland that only had one channel until the 80's and that didn't start till mid afternoon and closed by 11.30 😳

[@sarjim4381]

@@pit_stop77 There was actually. The 60's and 70's were kind of the golden age if US television. We had everything from comedies Jackie Gleason and the Honeymooners and Lucille Ball, variety shows like Ed Sullivan, and serious programs like 20th Century and Hallmark Theater. We even adapted some British programs to become shows like All In The Family, and I watched Fawlty Towers and Monty Python religiously. I was a kid/teenager in the 50's and 60's and it was rare not to have at least a couple programs of interest every evening. There were also local programs like Ghoulardi and his terrible but funny science fiction movies from my hometown of Cleveland that became regional favorites. Every station put on local news and weather. The idea of tuning into one channel for the news of the entire country followed by maybe two minutes of weather for the whole country was completely foreign to me. Local news generally lasted a half-hour followed by a half-hour of national news from one of the Big Three networks. Fox and CNN got their starts by providing news programming to non-network statons. My impression from watching reruns of BBC news, even into the 90's, was the British were satisfied with maybe 20 minutes of a just the biggest national and world stories and maybe a story or two that was local to their service area. Americans, by comparison, wanted detailed local news as well as national news. In particular, we wanted detailed local weather, with some weather segments running fifteen minutes, and weathermen becoming local celebrities. Stations commonly competed on the quality of their news and weather, and people would watch programs before or after their favorite local news, thereby selling more ad time. Most US station were operating until about 0200 in the 60's, and almost all were 24 hours by the 70's. It was mostly really old movies or cooking shows late night, but at least you had something on that would put you to sleep if you had insomnia. :-)

[@sarjim4381]

@supernumery Do you think I wasn't a fully sentient human being in 1982? Do you think I wasn't actually watching TV then? We had 12 VHF and 69 UHF channels available. Do you think that combination wasn't enough to provide 8 TV channels. There were actually 16 Los Angeles channels on the air on October 1, 1982. That doesn't count a couple more channels from places like Santa Barbara and San Bernardino that were receivable with a good antenna system, and even XETV out of Tijuana that I was able to get when conditions were right. Just as a suggestion, the next time you want to type a lot of nonsense you know nothing about, open up Notepad and have at it. It's better than looking like an idiot on here. (www.radiodiscussions.com/showthread.php?486992-RETRO-LOS-ANGELES-TV-Friday-October-1-1982)

[@scottpeacock5492]

@@sarjim4381 You had 12 VHF Channels and 69 UHF Channels, Those were analogue terrestrial tv band frequnecies, Britain only had four channel by the end of 1982.

[@mrkipling2201]

I have to say that I’ve never understood American television!! That’s not being derogatory, I just never got the different local channels like XPQY from Boston ( not a real channel, just an example ) and the like.

[@Alfredromeothatsme]

Would be interesting to find out what programmes were available to those early subscribers who forked out nine quid a week in 1982!

[@kamrankhan-lj1ng]

tv back in the day was a wholesome package worldwide: sports, movies, news, songs, talk shows, nature documentaries, all were shown from the same channel. with segregation of channels everything went wrong. no one can watch news for multiple hours, even if it is quality news. same is true for movies, sports, talk shows etc.

[@georgiehogman2001]

And it wasn’t 60 to 100 a month to watch either.

[@kamrankhan-lj1ng]

@supernumery wholesome in both senses. in the idiomatic sense "healthy" and in the literal sense "whole" "inclusive".

[@georgiehogman2001]

I was happy with 4 channels. There was also something quite special about sky BSB back in the 80s and 90s. Now there is too much choice where we don’t bother and watch Netflix instead.

[@kailashpatel1706]

same here..'we only had four channels back then but so much more on TV'...

[@bendover9663]

90s had it just about right

[@kamrankhan-lj1ng]

too much choice and nothing worthy to watch, seems the trend worldwide for the past 22 years.

[@georgiehogman2001]

Kailash Patel what they put on Tv had to be of a decent quality because they had nowhere to hide. These days they can put any old shit on the telly and get lost amongst the hundreds of other crappy channels.. it isn’t really progression it is just people making money.

[@georgiehogman2001]

Ben Dover ray Cokes on MTV. The Big Breakfast...

[@heinkle1]

“We make most of our own television sets”... just wait ten years.

[@paulduckett6496]

I think rumbleows has a sanyo TV sale on

[@timpriddy349]

I remember 1985 with 4 channels....but tv was all you had back then if you had a video you could go rent something

[@kamrankhan-lj1ng]

4 quality channels better than 400 useless ones.

[@Miguel_El_Chileno]

the Illusion of Choice, Economy of Oligopoly

[@bostonblackie9503]

When they tried cable out for the first time in Canada, One city chosen was the city I grew up in although not around at the time. It was to an invited audience to see the Coronation of the Queen live. The rest of the country saw it the following day when the RAF flew the film to Canada. The US didn't see it until a week later after all commonwealth countries had seen it. When cable was already available to everybody remember me and my siblings begging my dad to get it. Too many channels now, just cancelled a bunch, didn't watch them and didn't know where to find anything. As far as the BBC is concerned they will have to go this way, instead of taxpayers. You know people in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales pay the same amount of tax to the BBC as England and almost 100% of programming is about England, their history, literature, culture. Comedies and dramas are all set in England. It is as if the other three countries don't exist. They should just not pay they get nothing for it.

[@mr.y.mysterious.video1]

We make most of our television sets. How times change!

[@cBearTV-]

"10,20,or even 30 extra channels".....if only he knew,we now have 100s of extra channels and the choice is worse than ever!! 🙄🙄.... hence I'm a KZbin gal 👍👍

[@erik_griswold]

“57 channels and there’s nothing on” - Springsteen.

[@seymourbeaver753]

You couldn't beat topless darts with red triangle in corner of screen.

[@anthonyperkins7556]

Topless Darts was broadcast via cable-exclusive L!VE TV

[@ozhoneybadger]

Well, goes to show how the past was really the future, they paved the way for all this and they had the technology all along.

[@aviationiceman9549]

hffp1 enjoy the cancer everyone !

[@jamesbrock4040]

Does anyone on here think that the Director of Redifusion would make a great count Dracula

[@mrkipling2201]

I remember watching a documentary about Satellite television/Cable television and I remember that the first Satellite programming was in the early 1980’s. Broadcast from Swindon.

[@fatlad5090]

And now got a choice of everything I remember when it was just 4 channels before we got sky in 1986 the full street was out looking through our Windows lol

[@M500VYN]

Mark my words, this will never catch on. Never I say 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@Sheffield_Steve]

The saddest irony of this programme from Thames, that the future of TV would be 10 years later, the demise of one of THE premium broadcasters of the ITV network and TV would never be the same again. It's a shame that its current owners of the name didn't try to bring Thames back via the local TV applications to London.

[@grainneminihane625]

I remember telly text. Jesus 😂

[@potmej1]

Remember telly? :)

[@MostlyLoveOfMusic]

Ceefax was the thing

[@Stormy177]

Teletext and Ceefax were awesome back in the day!

[@pit_stop77]

Weird, I watched convoy just two days ago. 10-4 rubber duck, pig pens got the back door.... 😂

[@tubularbill]

“A step that could lead to 10 or even 30 viewing channels”...imagine that!...lol

[@johnrider5701]

Today we have hundred s of channels and most of them are completely crap . ..

[@taffymackem2596]

And even a service where you can choose from 100s blue movies. So my mate says.

[@jacquelinesmith8029]

From Space! Bollocks!

[@kamrankhan-lj1ng]

1986 is not "very soon" for a viewer in 1982!

[@yellowbelly06]

Bryan Cowgill, the man who saved Minder from an early grave but was forced to quit when he tried to poach Dallas from the BBC.

[@wolfblitzer1981]

The future was Rupert Murdoch's news corporation

[@wolfblitzer1981]

Correct let's hope the sons fuck it all up

[@mr.y.mysterious.video1]

Presumably the 2 bbc channels didn’t happen? Or at least until many years later when we got bbc choice

[@ozhoneybadger]

Well they were right about the UK being patchy. Many areas don't have VM

[@MostlyLoveOfMusic]

fascinating

[@ozhoneybadger]

X rated number 4

[@samoyedpuppy]

😂👍

[@kamrankhan-lj1ng]

good system

[@ty1978]

An X rated movie on at 10pm?! Gold cut the best lines out of programmes that are on after 11!

[@anthonyperkins7556]

Cable TV was a poor deal, on the early primitive cable systems, you only got a limited number of channels, and you only got additional radio channels if you are lucky subject to the cable operator offering those, and the end quality after excessive conversion / processing of the picture and sound is significantly worse at the reception end of the set top box with fuzzy PAL pictures and compressed mono analogue sound, no stereo here. Modern cable networks using fibre optic cable to carry and convey radio channels were better, as they could carry more channels, offer stereo TV soundtracks either in NICAM Digital Stereo to be picked up via a NICAM Stereo TV and NICAM Stereo VCR or via FM Stereo radio frequencies picked up on a HiFi system hooked up via an aerial socket to the cable system which could also offer satellite radio stations in addition to terrestrial radio stations should a cable operator choose to offer them, plus clearer sharper phone calls and two way interactivity / internet access etc.

[@michaelpyatt831]

Peapod 35 years ahead of time at 17.28 !!!

[@ozhoneybadger]

Anyone ever ordered anything via that prestel Teletext system

[@samoyedpuppy]

Teletext was the ITV version sometimes called The Oracle, Ceefax was the BBC version, I once order plane tickets via Teletext, but I didn't enter a Credit Card number, just used the phone number on the screen. I always used Ceefax to get the latest Football scores and fixtures + film & entertainment news.

[@samnicholson5051]

Did they let that random subscriber know that they switched off their cable?

[@somervillearron]

i thought my cooker was beeping lol

[@somervillearron]

thought i was getting dinner early!

[@louisemartin6820]

10 channels that’s crazy too much choice, I’m not sure it’s a good idea, I like the three channels as they have good programming and I don’t have a confusing dilemma about what to watch.

[@sen5908]

1000's of channels and all full of crap

[@bozmanjohn2507]

The television of tomorrow is the internet.

[@fatlad5090]

Fitzpatricks laid the cable in Bradford and made a rite mess

[@scifidesign2]

10 20 0r even 30 extra channels, lol. Try 300 extra channels. Netflix, Amazon, Disney Plus, Apple TV and others. .

[@agfagaevart]

8:07 The start of the deathroes of terrestial TV! Kenneth Baker has the nerve to mention the railwails?! another thing the Tories messed up, besides British Television.

[@apenation8100]

Uuuh, thirty viewing channels!