The opening of BBC Choice - 23/9/1998 (complete) 

This brought back some memories, sitting in the green room at TVC on launch night. As someone who was involved in this channel I can say it was well intentioned but underfunded. There was a lot of new sorts of content for the BBC and it was quite an exciting place to work. Pick of the week was a real 'seat of the pants' experience with some new tech that sometimes didn't work properly for the live part. Also at launch the number of set top boxes available could be counted on two hands, - sadly lacking, I had trouble getting them and I was the technical manager for the Choice Production village.

3:48 “the picture quality was dreadful, almost as bad as channel 5” damn bbc

Sweet God, whenever Clive mentioned "tapes" it made me feel very old. I remember VHS and video tapes. I used to have a huge collection of VHS recordings of sitcoms, dramas, events etc from when I first got a VCR in 1988 until the last time I used a VCR in June 2009 after which we dumped it and moved over to what was Sky+.

BBC choice, where there isn't any.

I remember that the launch was first simulcasted on the Internet then they did the same thing for the Sky Digital launch anyway

It's cool how they put in the first spoken words from the original Star Wars trailer in there. Although I would like to see more of the countdown.

2:55 Karl Collins who later went on to play DC Danny Glaze in The Bill

Dang, this was 1998? This is so high quality!

That countdown timer was freaky

19:02 Hey look, a future Doctor!

1936:huzzah televisión!!! 1968:huzzah color!!! 1998:huzzah digital!!! 2022:huzzah...Smartphone hang on i thought were going for holographic tv's not smartphones and tablets!!!

The countdown is the same from from the launch of BBC Knowledge

So much promise.

this was only online and through those display TVs in shops

Why was David Batty shown scoring Michael Owen's penalty at 7:23?

"Sorry! Mustn't show you the ending." 🤣

8:59 jogaram terra no coitado...

Was this launch simulcast on either BBC 1 or BBC 2?

i miss bbc three/choice. though i wasn't around when bbc choice was airing. (i was born in 2004). hmm. not a flying fuck was given that day.

how did people watch this without on digital or sky digital?

0:00 - 1:29 Can you di a with Link plies :) Thanks

Didnt they reuse the same countdown graphic and anthology documentary launch program format for the launch of BBC4/BBC Knowledge in 1999 the next year?

Why launch a channel, when there was no service to transmit it to viewers? At least when say BBC 2 launched in April 1964, there was at least one UHF transmitter in London transmitting it to the capital.

all that hope and expectation, shame they didnt realise that they were going backwards.. (:^D)

I thought Jim Dale had something to do with Eastenders for a second there

0:00 - 1:29 What countdown is this? Put in link to watch

2:26 uma tentativa de previr o Noel Robinson...

01:29

Choice is Cbeebies.

Who else thought that the guy at 3.00 looks kinda like Miniminter

;

lmfao