Country | Europe |
---|---|
Broadcast area | United Kingdom |
Ownership | |
Owner | Maxwell Communication Corporation (30%) British Telecom (30%) HBO Viacom 20th Century Fox Columbia Pictures [1] |
History | |
Launched | 1 September 1984 |
Closed | 31 July 1989 |
Replaced by | Sky Movies |
Former names | The Entertainment Network (29 March 1984 – 4 June 1985) Mirrorvision (5 June 1985 – 1 April 1986) Star Channel (August 1986 – July 1987) |
Premiere (also known as PREM1ERE on air), launched on 1 September 1984. It was the first subscription movie channel that broadcast to Europe via satellite alongside the other services of that time including Sky Channel, Music Box and The Children's Channel.
The Entertainment Network – also known as TEN and The Movie Channel – launched in the UK on 29 March 1984 by Czechoslovak-born British media proprietor Robert Maxwell. It was jointly owned by UIP Pay TV Group (MGM/UA, Paramount and MCA/Universal), Visionhire, Plessey and The Rank Organisation. It was developed in-house by Rediffusion Cablevision and was available exclusively as part of their fledgling cable service.
The station went bust in June 1985, ending its transmission at midnight on Tuesday, 4 June 1985. [2] It was re-launched the following afternoon, once again by Robert Maxwell, under the moniker MirrorVision.
MirrorVision was a film channel from the stable of the Daily Mirror launched on Wednesday, 5 June 1985. [3] It lasted less than ten months before merging with Premiere on 1 April 1986. [4]
Star Channel was started by British Telecom in August 1986 as an alternative film service which broadcasts between 6.30pm and 2.00am. It was distributed to several cable operators on videotape form rather than by satellite.
Discussions on a merger between the film services were begun and concluded with Premiere, Star Channel and Home Video Channel all now being programmed within a reconstructed partnership but the channel continued as a separate service for the time being.
In July 1987, the expected closure of Star Channel took place following its merger with Premiere, thereby reducing the remaining film services to include Bravo and Home Video Channel.
Due to losses of around £10 million and increased competition from Sky Movies, Premiere closed on 31 July 1989. The final film shown was 1985's Twice in a Lifetime , followed by a final announcement thanking the viewers as well as a few businesses that helped with Premiere's transmission.
In addition to movies, the service also showed children's television programmes in an after school slot as fillers. The channel premiered ThunderCats before the BBC1 launch, and Premiere was also the first channel to show Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors .
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Sky One was a British pay television channel operated and owned by Sky Group. Originally launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, it was Europe's first satellite and non-terrestrial channel. From 31 July 1989, it became Sky One and broadcast exclusively in the United Kingdom and Ireland as British Sky Broadcasting's flagship channel. It existed until 1 September 2021, when it closed down as part of a restructuring with its EPG position taken by Sky Showcase and much of its content library moved to Sky Max.
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Sky Television plc was a public limited company which operated a nine-channel satellite television service, launched by Rupert Murdoch's News International on 5 February 1989. Sky Television and its rival British Satellite Broadcasting suffered large financial losses, and merged on 2 November 1990 to form British Sky Broadcasting. A programming merger took effect on 1 December 1990.
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based at Warner Bros. Discovery's corporate headquarters inside 30 Hudson Yards in Manhattan. Programming featured on the network consists primarily of theatrically released motion pictures and original television programs as well as made-for-cable movies, documentaries, occasional comedy, and concert specials, and periodic interstitial programs.
TCM Movies was a British pay television channel, focussing mostly on classic movies, mostly from the Turner Entertainment and Warner Bros. film libraries, which included many MGM titles, along with movie-related profiles and some classic American television series.
Groupe Canal+, also known as Canal+ Group in English, is a French media and telecommunications conglomerate based in Paris, owned and controlled by Vivendi. It runs its own subscription TV channels in France, distributes third-party channels and services, and is a major source of finance for domestic film production, participating in the financing of the vast majority of films produced in France. It also has its own subsidiary companies with direct involvement in film production and distribution, such as StudioCanal. Apart from extensive operations in mainland France, the company owns many subsidiaries and operates in countries across Europe, Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, and in French Overseas Territories.
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Nollywood Movies is an online subscription movie television channel, formerly broadcast in the United Kingdom on Sky channel 327. Each month the channel offers over 30 different new and recently released Nigerian movies, 24 hours a day. It is the first such channel in operation in the UK. Films offered are primarily in English, with some subtitled, in genres including drama, comedy, romance, family, thriller, traditional, fantasy and true story films. The channel is funded through subscription and advertising.
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This is a list of British television related events from 1986.
Home Video Channel (HVC) was a British cable television channel that began operating in 1985, broadcasting low-budget films between 8:00 p.m. and midnight. Film genres included horror, action, adventure, science fiction, and erotica. In 1992, a second channel, The Adult Channel, was launched by HVC's owner, Home Video Channel Limited (HVCL). It broadcast erotic films and softcore pornography.
This is a timeline of the history of Sky Television.
This is a timeline of cable television in the United Kingdom.