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British Satellite Broadcasting
British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) was the UK's official direct to home satellite television service. Although due to go on air in 1989, it eventually opened during the Spring of 1990. The delay gave Rupert Murdoch's analogue service Sky Television the opportunity to build up an audience ahead of BSB's opening and eventually in December 1990, the two services "merged" with only The Movie Channel of BSB surviving under the renamed British Sky Broadcasting.
BSB was marketed as 5 Channel TV with the following line up of stations:
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Galaxy - The entertainment channel. BSB's general entertainment channel was titled Galaxy and included repeats from the BBC library - Dr. Who, Secret Army, Grange Hill, Steptoe and Son, Till Death Us Do Part, Are You Being Served, Dad's Army and Porridge. American series broadcast included China Beach and Murphy Brown. Jupiter Moon, a Sci-fi serial was commissioned specially for Galaxy. |
| "Now - The Channel for Living" Now was BSB's serious channel - featuring Lifestyle, Leisure, Health, Politics and News. "Frost on Sunday" was a BSB programme before he moved to present a similar programme on BBC1 on a Sunday. Selina Scott was one of the presenters on BSB's current affairs feature "First Edition" broadcast at 7 each weekday evening. The Performing Arts (Modern Dance, Ballet and Opera) were a significant feature at weekends on Now. |
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The Movie Channel. This was BSB's subscription channel featuring top films from some of the major Hollywood studios. Films shown on the channel included Rain Man, A fish called Wanda, Crocodile Dundee, Fatal Attraction and The Living Daylights. |
| The Power Station This channel featured concerts from artistes including The Inspiral Carpets, Belinda Carlisle, Jason Donovan (live) and Phil Collins. Speak Easy featured Jazz with Rock music a feature of Raw Power. Power Up was the Power Station's Breakfast Show hosted by Chris Evans. |
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The Sports Channel This channel featured major British sporting events - much of the output was shared with the BBC. It was the first to broadcast the first two rounds of the FA Cup live. It also had exclusive live coverage of England's home international football matches. Motor Sport had regular featured programmes. Live US Open tennis was also broadcast on the channel.The primetime slot at 8pm each evening covered major British Events - such as Wimbledon Tennis and Test Cricket highlights.The channel also had a daily horse-racing round-up broadcast at 10pm. each weekday evening. |
| BSB News British Satellite Broadcasting did not transmit a news channel. It's news output consisted of News Summaries of two or three minutes in length transmitted regularly throughout broadcast hours on all of its five channels. |
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Click on a channel ident above to view RealVideo of BSB idents