I see someone had cable in L.A. in 1997. I recognize those channels IDs. :) Thanks so much for sharing! I'm from San Diego and there was a bit of channel overlap. We got KTLA and WGN with basic cable. It's interesting to compare channel numbers with content. Our channels 14 through 20 were all public access or Spanish stations. I guess that wasn't the case in areas not bordering Mexico.
These were the days. As a kid or teenager scrolling through channels late night and finding nothing on then stopping on this channel to see what's on then falling asleep. I truly miss the days of this channel and when pay per view was super exciting because that's how you saw new movies and events that came out.
I knew it had to be Memorial Day weekend, as the Coca-Cola 600 is always then. Since this is Pacific Time, a 6:30 EDT start in Charlotte would be just right in California.
That's neat! We had no Channel 1 in San Diego. Channel 2 was WGN of all things, channel 3 was the Prevue Channel so we'd always see it when we'd turn the TV to switch to our video games or VCR, no channel 4, channel 5 was an L.A. station, 6, 7, 8 were Fox, ABC, and CBS, channel 9 was independent, channel 10 was ABC, 11 was PBS, and everything beyond that was public access or Spanish channels unless you paid for extended cable. Watching all those channel listings scroll by on the Prevue Channel was often depressing.
Does anyone remember the Preview channel blues song? It was a bluesy guitar riff and lyrics was like I need my preview channel yeah that’s what I need, cause I need my preview channel or something like that
Sunday May 25, 1997 The #1 film was “Jurassic Park: The Lost World”, earning $72.1 million ($90.2 million including Memorial Day Monday) The #1 song was “MMMBop” by Hanson, its first of three weeks in a row on top. The top shows of the week were “Mad About You” (17.6/29, 25.67 million) and “The Odyssey, Part 2” (16.7/26, 26.32 million) both on NBC.
I wonder If they had Prevue Channel for FTA Ku-Band? (as they did for C-Band), the abbreviation of sat names used in the listings would be IK, P2, P4, B4, B5, B6, X3, X4, X7, W6, W7 (Primestar), W8, S8, S9, T7, T8, R4, K2 (KC on 4DTV), A1, A2, A3 etc..
There was a kinda similar channel here in Hungary, called "C8", which was only available over the air for free. It only broadcasted daily from 08:00PM for a few hours. It featured some full episodes from shows/cartoons from a few different channels, which were changed regularly. However, "C8" channel is only lasted for some years before it suddenly become extinct forever. No other (at least a bit) similar channel exist since then. Yeah, the early years of the DVB-T digital transmission era... 🙄
