The Television Affair: Episode 4 - Pan European Satellite (The Analogue years)

It’s time for the last parts in the television affair looking at satellite TV, and on this episode we’ll be checking out some of the channels that were missed out, and channels that you may have just been able to pick up on your dish with a bit of re-tuning, that came from other countries - mainly europe. You may have also gone on holiday in Europe and noticed some of these channels on your travels. For some we’ll look at their roots, touch on their home service or look into the sister stations.
This episode includes looking at RTL in Germany and the Netherlands, Failed French Fifth channel La Cinq, it’s boss who would become the Italian prime minister, and the complete car crash of a pan european channel called Europa. As usual, we’ll be taking a quick gander at their idents. The Yorkshire TV ident is also back this time.
This is the first of two parts, the second will be released in a week or so, and we’ll look at some BBC stations you might not have known about, along with German kids tv station KiKa and what happens when being a propaganda station goes terribly wrong.

[@SweetStevieAaron]

I cannot tell you how much I love, love, love what you’re doing. You’ve tapped into something that just isn’t getting covered elsewhere. Keep it up!

[@AJGuinness]

That awkward moment when I was a preteen and I see for the first time what late night German TV looks like... analogue satellite was eye opening for sure 😂

[@custardpie69]

Aah, I remember it well....

[@custardpie69]

Happy days

[@ianbennett66]

Early Day's European Broadcast On Astra Satellite Loved My Favourite Is RTL 4 RTL 5 SBS 6 & Veronica Dutch TV Until 1996 Until They Digital When On Astra 1E

[@khaz606]

This reminds me when we had Sat1 on cable and sometimes they forgot to scramble the adult section for a hour or so :).

[@ianbennett66]

I'll Still Watched Sat1 On Astra Satellite Since 1990 When 1st Game Wheels Of Fortune & Promi Big Brother I'll Didn't Know Sat1 On Cable Was Partly Scrambled But Always Free-To-Air On Astra 24/7 But I'll Remember Some Programme's On RTL 4 Partly Scrambled With Luxcrypt Decoder & Free-To-Air In The Early Day's

[@tomhekker]

Laughed so hard at the Yorkshire TV logo popping up as a spaceship 😂 And yes, in a bunch of European countries you have to tell you are going to advertisements. In the Netherlands you don’t have to put “Reclame” on the screen, Dutch for advertisements, but you have to play out channel identification slides to make sure people realise they are leaving the programme running for something else.

[@magnetizedclairwy]

This is fantastic! So many memories were brought back through this video. I miss those days so much 😞. We would spend all day and night watching mtv2pop (dance hits at 1am was my favourite), Viva Zwei, and Viva Plus, as well as Eurosport and I remember being able to change the audio track via my remote to a different language or no language at all, very useful when you want to hear the sound of a 2 stroke 125cc motorcycle engine revving around the track or the silence of a snooker hall before someone takes an important shot. I discovered a lot during my satellite watching years and discovered a load of musical artists who I still follow today. 19.2e and 13e were the ones we would catch mostly in my part of the UK. In later years I bought my own box for my bedroom and discovered a love of Russian music stations like RU tv, and Deluxe Music in Germany. How things have changed. These channels still fascinate me to this day so to be able to watch a KZbin video about them and their history is fantastic, thank you so so much and I can't wait for part 2!

[@jordanhowell7798]

This is the first time of me knowing about other European satellite TV channels.

[@moojuiceuk]

That Europa ident goes on and on like an Ariston! Please tell us that's the morning start-up sequence and not something played at the start of every programme they showed!? The early tri-force 3-sat idents were good because it name checks the founder networks which I quite like. A bit like the 80s ARD Das Erste idents in a metallic CGI look which have all the regional logos fly into the number 1. A nice touch to show that the channel is a group effort of all the little stations. Shame ITV seldom used a multi-region logo (apart from the Telethon sequences and their "Just the way you are" promo).

[@sports872]

I love stuff like this. I'm fascinated with watching foreign channels especially news, sport, and something like life/current affairs /magazine shows. I'm not sure why but I always have been. I'm also fascinated with TV channels in Britain, especially all the ones of the past. Enjoyed this historical look at British and European TV channels. I could spend a full day channel flicking European and world TV channels if I could. Particularly European. The different promos on the are brilliant. I still go back and watch the Channel 5 1997 pre launch trails now and again 😂 I was so excited when I was retuning my small TV at 10 years old and got the Channel 5 preview. Could not stop watching it. I had high hopes for the channel but they really missed a good opportunity.

[@zetametallic]

Don't worry I'm exactly the same. There's a few of us our there😊

[@magnetizedclairwy]

I am exactly the same! I have never been able to figure out why either but I do!

[@sports872]

@@magnetizedclairwy Are there any good ones that broadcast on KZbin?

[@magnetizedclairwy]

@@sports872 umm not that I'm aware of, these days most of the channels I remember that are still around and broadcasting are geoblocked or behind a paywall. KZbin is a bit more copyright minded so Twitch might be the place to go, or failing that the actual channels website. Lyngsat will give you a list of what channels are on which satellites so you can see if any peak your interest.

[@sports872]

@@magnetizedclairwy Thanks, I'll check both out.

[@RussWWFC]

I was a right satellite geek as a kid, used to love watching The Price Is Right in German on Astra. Remember Eutelsat but never saw it. Also remember Intelsat at 27.5W

[@marcuslavaggi-bowen6539]

Oh yes!, "Der Preis is Heiß", or "The Price is Hot". Never translated the original title for some reason. The games in it were later used in the ITV Bruce Forsyth version, like "Plinko".

[@mrmojorisin2901]

FilmNet brings back some memories for me as I used to watch it as a teeneager in the UK with some sort of pirate decoder, at least I think it was a pirate decoder... Crazy how many old memories this video brought back to me

[@Redrally]

In many European countries they try to avoid people "falling for" adverts by making the commercials clear, hence "Werbung" in Germany etc. It's also to make sure children don't mix up commercials and actual shows/content.

[@BorisBecksRetro]

I can only speak for Germany but it is indeed required by law (or rather regulation) that there has to be a clear seperation of the TV programme and the commercials. So if one wants to broadcast a show with advertising attached to it, like "Wheel of fortune" or "The price is right", the whole show has to be classified as ongoing advertising or "Dauerwerbesendung".

[@bluefrogTV_]

Memories of watching international TV channels I somehow got access to and not understanding a word that was said but still enjoying it eitherway!

[@loganmacgyver2625]

That was literally my childhood! I watched cartoons off an Arabic bird

[@MartinFarrell1972]

Used to get the Sat 1 and RTL on cable. Used to watch Sat 1 when there was nothing else on. Although I don't speak any German I was able to follow the storyline of a married with children episode. RTL 4 was usually in English so watched this a lot. Sat 1 on a Friday night???

[@karimkamel4295]

ha yeh me too....

[@secagold]

Excellent video !!!

[@jgdsgh]

Foreign TV Channels have fascinated me since I was a kid, I remember going on holiday to Germany and in the hotel, I got to watch German channels such as ZDF and Super RTL, mostly the latter due to my age. I couldn't speak a word of German at the time, (I have a very limited grasp now), but I did enjoy watching it.

[@grindelston5968]

I had the budget version of this when I got taken for a week's holiday in wales. Watching S4C on a tiny b&w tv.

[@jgdsgh]

@@grindelston5968 Nice :)

[@Berd95]

This video series is great

[@custardpie69]

Anyway, enough rememenisicing... excellent show as ever mate

[@wakefieldoutlaw]

Sat.1 and their Wheel of Fortune thing live long in the memory. Think I've tried to play the game of it from some Abandonware site before remembering I haven't read German since GCSEs in 1997.

[@DOSORDIE]

How nice it was integrated in the Logo and the SAT.1 CI. That looked so beautiful when the Ball was in Rainbow Colors.

[@zetametallic]

I loved the SAT-1 ball when it yawned before bed, it was at the end of a lovely sequence.

[@marcuslavaggi-bowen6539]

Love the Europa Channel mock meeting 🤣🤣🤣

[@classicfootballbroadcastin4318]

Brilliant content

[@Stephie2007]

I think I saw the Yorkshire chevron during the La Cinq 5 segment.

[@dtvfan24]

Love this so much, takes me back so much on watching europe tv while on holiday. still enjoy wathcing Swiss and French tv someitmes and i do think Parliment channel at 5:11 is needed, most other coutries including USA has a parliment channel which is a joint venutre of US cogress and cable comapnies.

[@jonkasonic]

Yeah I think sometimes watching BBC Parliament its really interesting to see how the houses and how government functions. I know some people can't stand it though. I think also with it being broadcast live the press haven't had chance to spin it.

[@MarkPentler]

@@jonkasonicsure, but the MPs know folk are watching and that the papers will be based off their words, so they'll try for the sound bite.

[@marcuslavaggi-bowen6539]

Cromwell's Hothouse clothes store at Lakeside Shopping Centre in Thurrock, Essex used to play MCM in their stores on like 10 bubble-like TVs. You couldn't hear it though, it was on mute and they would play music of their own choice through the in-store sound system.

[@zetametallic]

MCM was the best. I've got VHS tapes of it I need to upload. Some is already on my channel.

[@zetametallic]

Teleclub had the best intro sequence ever, I always used to blast it out before it scrambled. My parents both liked it too😂

[@testcardsandmore1231]

Yep, that was really cool. Then the screen turned literally black. It was a weird scrambling system they used.

[@mr.y.mysterious.video1]

I miss the days when you'd get tv from other countries on your regular satellite dish. I had a dish with 2 arms so I could get a bit extra like the viva and viva2 music channels and also enjoyed watching the German equivalent of you've been framed called bitte lacheln along with the dsf sports channel

[@marcuslavaggi-bowen6539]

Telekids like CITV was once, was a program block at one point. It broadcasted on RTL 4 back in the late 80s and early 90s.

[@veejay420]

Used to watch WCW Saturday Night and other shows with my Grandad despite the German commentary, it was dubbed over the American team but you could still hear them and make out what was being said from time to time. Did this till WCW Nitro started on TNT.

[@jpkaye79]

The fact we got the wcw ppvs 2 weeks after they were shown too. Can still remember watching BATB 96 with Hogan's turn. Good times

[@marcuslavaggi-bowen6539]

That was on Tele 5 wasn't it?. They had a kids slot on there called "Bim Bam Bino".

[@veejay420]

@@marcuslavaggi-bowen6539 I do remember the channel Tele 5 but I can't remember WCW being shown on there, I could be wrong though! I used to watch the wrestling on DSF or Sat6.

[@veejay420]

@@jpkaye79 ah man I missed out on the ppvs! Around that time I was watching WWF primarily and only briefly caught up on the WCW vs NWO stuff on TNT around 97. Good times though!

[@marcuslavaggi-bowen6539]

@@veejay420 yeah, I think Tele 5 was WWF as it was called at the time. DSF were another good one, especially with their 5 a side football tournaments that were played by Bundesliga reserve players during the mid season breaks they used to have. They didn't use the head height rule in that.

[@HarenchiFairy]

The VIVA Zwei logo is A plus Sign, and the 90s logo VIVA II, looks a wiggly curvy, they spell WAII

[@albertobellido95]

Berlusconi did a better job in Spain with Telecinco. When privately-owned stations were allowed to broadcast in Spain, they took advantage of that (of course using number five in the name because of the original Canale Cinque in Italy), became one of the main channels at the time and still airs to this day. And to think everything started as a private cable station for an apartment complex makes the story more interesting.

[@jonkasonic]

Yeah I think in the lead up to channel 5s franchise they thought he was going to try

[@GryphLane]

17:02 Imagine being called Wiener Hofburg and seeing this on your screen

[@marcuslavaggi-bowen6539]

Does RTL still broadcast in Croatia?. I watched it on my hotel TV in 2007 and they shown the Andorra - Croatia Euro 2008 qualifier. HRT shown the home matches.

[@steeviebops]

I remember Minimax being scrambled on Astra in the Syster system with audio inversion.

[@ianbennett66]

Yes Minimax Was Scrambled On Astra 1C Channel 36 Until 2000 HRS UK Time Daily & Free-To-Air When Canal Satellite Promo Each Night

[@grindelston5968]

YTV chevron being a pest again love it

[@BrandonSilverFoxBishop]

19:08 Here's a Fun Fact: RTL's Slogan In The 90s Was "Wir Zeigen's Ihnen RTL." The Translation Is "We'll Show You RTL." For The Germans,It's Slogan Could Mean They want To Show You Some Good Shows. For Us and Me,I Thought It Mean The Slogan Wanted You To Give Them Your Money. XD

[@sophie_drachen]

I'm surprised that Europa didn't run out of money in its first year, splashing it on that drawn out ident. If that was used to go in between programmes then, what was used in the morning when starting up? Also, "werbung" is pronounced "ver-bung" with the er sounding like the word "air". I don't know much German. I do wish we had those sequences over here. I didn't know that RTL was used as something to air propaganda on in World War Two. Great video! Looking forward to episode five!

[@jonkasonic]

I couldn't find much on youtube but I would guess they just reused what they had or cut it down to smaller segments... that or an epicly long clock cowntdown or something would have been great to see. A few years ago in the Netherlands they made a project to preserve the archive of Europa and its documents. I found some more details here blog.euscreen.eu/2018/11/europa-tv-the-european-broadcasting-dream/ and it has a few clips of "Not pat sharp" on a clip of a music show. Ha, yes thank you! I am terrible pronunciation of the other languages! I am leaning Dutch but I keep forgetting the "Wuh'"s are pronounced "Vuh" Yeah Lord Haw Haw (real name was William Joyce) was broadcasting from Radio Luxembourg's studios, he was a british pro-naughty propaganda man, he was eventually caught (Shot in the butt apparently) and convicted of high treason. The standard punishment for that back in the day was to hang them out to dry.

[@ntmdisco]

what is the yorkshire tv logo doing in there 1320

[@ShaunDaubney]

Really enjoyed the nostalgic retrospective (with the exception of the unfunny and irrelevant Yorkshire TV logo jokes). I used to have a dual feed dish and despite not being able to speak German, French, Italian or Dutch, I would regularly watch Sat1, RTL Plus, RTL II, Super RTL, QVC Deutschland, VIVA, VIVA Zwei, TMF, Rai Uno, Pro7, all the Dutch RTLs, TV5, DW, 102.5 Hit Channel, Kika, etc RTL in Germany used to broadcast its own version of Top of the Pops which mixed local content with BBC recordings to make it look like the acts were there in Germany. I wonder if the BBC ever used the Germany footage and passed it off as London? Fun fact: During the during the Iraq War, US channels ABC, CBS and NBC were broadcast unencrypted across Europe, but hidden from EPGs. It was great (obviously not for the people in Iraq, but for me) as I got to watch loads of gameshows and sitcoms. The best channels were always the Dutch and Swiss ones because they would broadcast in VO (English) with either subtitles or simulcast audio.

[@harnett100]

listen to that sound

[@mr.y.mysterious.video1]

Arte exists as an on demand streaming channel on my LG tv.

[@darkhall8227]

film net used to be scrammble free now and again

[@loganmacgyver2625]

Minimax is still a thing in Hungary, Czechia and Slovakia. I wwtched it a lot when i was a kid. After 8-9PM it switched to Jetix i think (or Aimax, i dont knoe) which was a teens channel with dubbed anime. I was always really scared when minimax signed off and Jetix came on (when the swirch happened it went blank, some DTMF tones and a bumper)

[@BlooCNBoy02]

It was Animax. Jetix always had its own channel.

[@scottwebb1978]

Sat 1 had German theme tune neighbours you know that aussie soap

[@darkhall8227]

uk gold, mtv was free back then

[@nicmcv6925]

Praise the Chevron 🔰

[@malleychristian]

here in Germany because of regluations Gameshows had to be called infomercials because you saw from who you won the sponsored Prices RTL2 is Not a Pay TV it is a FTA Channel since the Start of 1992 and brought Anime to Germany and WWF Wrestling after the 1st Version of Tele 5 bits the Dust

[@GryphLane]

14:05 Weren't these oddities the work of the erstwhile Martin Lambie-Nairn?

[@jonkasonic]

I'm not 100% about the first one but the second one featured in that bit was

[@thentertaineronyoutube]

that ratio is TOTALLY SCREWED UP

[@jonkasonic]

Firstly thank you for caring about aspect ratio as much as I do, I feel like this is something I don't get enough back up on. Secondly yes I agree and I'm sorry! Something happened and I'm not 100% sure but it was to do with the settings and I'd forgotten what they were. I'd tested it out on my computer before uploading and it seemed fine until it went on KZbin, and by the time I realised something was up, it had got a lot of views and nobody else mentioned it. I tried to play the "pretend nothing is wrong and hopefully nobody will notice" game. So in that basis we'll done. You've won an imaginary prize, and that prize is a scuba diving trip on the Thames, where the original Thames Television logo is being used as a fish home. You're welcome! Thank you for watching:(

[@thentertaineronyoutube]

@@jonkasonic It's Thames, Not Temz

[@jonkasonic]

@@thentertaineronyoutube how would you say that?

[@thentertaineronyoutube]

@@jonkasonic it s not tenz edit : I mean temz

[@jonkasonic]

@@thentertaineronyoutube well somebody should have told lt's Cheif executibe and all the staff at the place that they were pronouncing it wrong! kzbin.info/www/bejne/qKmohp-sZ9mMfrc&ab_channel=ThamesTv (35 seconds)

[@BridgLondon]

Sat1 was famous for soft porn … apparently! I also recall RTL4 broadcasting a Dutch version of Prisoner Cell Block H 😂

[@patrykdettlaff]

Many German speaking channels had (or maybe still have) soft porn content during night time hours. I well remember it on RTL2 or Onyx (btw best music channel ever).

[@JimGardner]

If I went to Satellite World tomorrow and bought a dish and pointed it into the sky, what would I still be able to watch free to air? Is Astra still a thing? What's left of the old system and would I be wasting my money buying a motorised dish? For science.

[@jonkasonic]

Astra satellites are still up there, and there are still quite a few free to air channels too, many of the ones In the video are still on Astra and Eutelsat/Hotbird satellites and free to air but will probably not be anything premium, probably airing reruns unless they are a public service broadcaster or similar

[@jpkaye79]

There are websites with all the satellite channel locations that you can enter yourself lol

[@daviddyer3543]

#AssociatedHexagon

[@rtc9063]

It’s a shame Paramount wouldn’t take the same decision as Viacom did to close down Viva and call it a day with MTV. What the hell went wrong there? Seriously would anybody care less if they switched it off for good tomorrow?

[@patrykdettlaff]

Viacom is a great music channel destroyer. We had in Poland music channel Atomic Tv with great music. When was taken over by Viacom, great music finished playing. They did the same with taking over German Viva.

[@jonkasonic]

I'm surprised nobody's picked up on the intro music and where they might have heard the tune before kzbin.info/www/bejne/oHW6kIiKf82tqNk

[@accountclosed2411]

As also heard as the ident music for London-based forces television channel SSVC Television in the early 90s.. And the variation used here was also the theme music for RTL's news programme in the mid to late 80s.

[@geniusburger]

UK speaking audiences?

[@custardpie69]

lol

[@Charlottesville798]

Are you an amateur operator, by any chance......73?

[@jonkasonic]

No, but maybe one day :P