Skyscan Satellite TV commercial from 1985 

At 3:36 I thought it was some kind of Saturday Night humor with the guy lugging that huge dish. ha-ha

Christina Mooney thought the same

It is not illegal to search for the open feeds and to watch them.

Yes its still fun! Only problem I have that I live in northern Sweden and have too much trees in away. Other part this is really fun hobby.

There were different sizes of TV's, Thought that was common knowledge lol

Hell ,,,, our main living room tv was a 25 inch console..... so TVs of that size were very common

Thats a portable, only 14” I’d imagine this house to have a 26” set normally

Yeah.. 26 inch TVs were the most common tvs by the late 1980s and early 1990s..

​@@19seventy97 and they called those 50 pound tv's "portable"🤣

used by PMP Entertainment Sdn. Bhd.

Gordon Campbell it didn't use Astra 1a

This video was around 1985/86. As I recall, the channels mentioned were originally intended for cable TV companies and were broadcast unencrypted. Home satellite dishes started coming onto the market in 1985/86 and took advantage of this 'free' television to market their equipment. The channels were broadcast from an early Eutelsat 13degE satellite and (as far as I recollect) Intelsat 27degW. See: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Box_(TV_channel) Other companies jumped on the bandwagon and realised the potential for direct-to-home satellite. The Luxembourg-based Astra satellite (at 19degE) launched in 1989 along with Rupert Murdoch's Sky Television. Videocrypt encryption was also available at the launch of Sky TV and allowed Murdoch to charge subscriptions unlike the early channels mentioned in the video. Murdoch then cornered the UK market, knocking out competitors like BSB and then moved to the 28degE satellite, which consolidated his stranglehold further. This latter point is interesting as it moved the UK away from the rest of the European market where there's less of a captive market, significantly more free channels and an abundance of choice in satellite receivers. You could also argue that this move also detached us from mainland Europe culturally as when we were on the main European satellite at 19degE, there was far more interest in European channels such as RTL in Germany. Motorised systems today in the UK are rare and are for 'niche' enthusiasts, hence few people here are unaware of what's available away from 28degE. If you're interested, look here: www.lyngsat.com.

1987 i recognize the eurythmics video "when tommorrow comes"

Now they don’t even watch TV.

I live in northeast Missouri, in the 70s and 80s we only had 3 broadcast channels, and 1 UHF. We were in the country, so no other options except broadcast or satellite tv, which required a huge 8 to 12 foot dish, and if I remember it cost several thousand dollars. Didn't get cable until we moved to the county seat of 2,000 people in 1983. 15 channels, $10/month, plus hbo, cenemax, and showtime for $8 each

@@dave1135 until the early 80s you could only get three channels over uhf or VHF in the UK. The fourth started in 82, and then satellite sort of took off in the early 90s.

I’ve just given both of my teles away. They weren’t getting used. I still watch tele just not on a set anymore.

it just involved into sky tv!

EBS, EUTELSAT or INTELSAT

Yes Euelsat 13Deg East and intelsat 27deg west was 4 years before Astra 19deg Used to watch Premier on Intelsat and filmnet on Eutelsat Got my first 1.8 M dish in 1986

@@daveinthailand My family had their first satellite dish in 1991 and was on Astra 19,2 East. It was a 90 cm Ku Band dish. I was curious what satellites were available before Astra 19.2 East, considering Astra was launched in 1988.

@@daveinthailand Wasn't Intelsat 27 West used for UK, Germany, France? And HotBird 13 East for the rest of Europe.

@@Nicholas_Chris Yes that is Right Used to fit motorised sat dishes back when I lived in 🇬🇧

If you could afford Satellite TV back then, you probably also owned a video recorder, problem solved. Children's TV is also a useful way to keep the kids busy during the school holidays. Likely the transponder was timeshared with another channel, probably one targeted for more of a 'general' audience during primetime hours. To be honest daytime during working hours seems like the most logical time for children's viewing, as the younger ones don't have school yet and schools have half terms, Easter break, Christmas break, teacher training days, teachers strikes, and of course the 6 week summer holidays.

Canada was formerly a British commonwealth country and still claims Elizabeth as a Queen

@@videoluvr4204 That’s doesn’t explain why are the British interested in the CFL

Absolute unit.

Small compared to many C band dishes. lol

1.2 meter Channel Master Dish

Big bring help

bigger than the tv

Before, I imagine, they got their butts kicked by UK Living and Sky Sports, respectively?

@@andrewschroy6368 Lifestyle was off air long before UK Living was a thing and Screensport "merged" with Eurosport (as in, Screensport went off air while Eurosport carried on broadcasting) This was also before Sky Sports was a thing if only just. Sky part owned Eurosport at that time. Eurosport was one of Sky's four channels, Screensport and Lifestyle weren't. By the way, this was the key difference between Sky and BSB. On BSB, their five channels were the only channels on the Marcopolo satellite. Sky, which was on Astra used four out of sixteen transponders on somebody else's satellite, leaving the other 12 free for anyone who wanted to rent space on them and that was before Astra went and launched more satellites.

@@andrewschroy6368 Of course, in the case of Screensport v Eurosport, Eurosport had the advantage in that their name was the same in every language. The on screen name of Screensport was actuallty the European Sports Network. Screensport was the name of the channels English language commentary feed. Other languages had different names.

Satellite Television began regular transmissions on 26 April 1982. On 16 January 1984, Satellite Television Limited was renamed Sky Channel. Yes SKY existed back then. And this commercial is not about SKY but SKYSCAN

Back then it was analog. In the late 90s digital satellite TV started broadcasting simultaneously with analog. After 2000s all satellite TV channels went digital and analog transmission shut down.

@@Nicholas_Chris Interesting fact: here in Brazil we still have analog TV channels on StarOne C2 satellite, there are about 18 channels, probably it's the last satellite transmitting analog TV

@@DoritoFD CSPAN on 131w AMC-11 is the last analog channel for North America.

It's true. It's called a motorised dish