[Larry the Loafer]

In fairness, Magic, Kiss and Kerrang live on through their respective radio stations, as well as the latter having its magazine. 4Music, in my opinion, never really had all that much brand power. Considering its heritage, I'd say The Box was the biggest loss out of this mass exodus.

[James2001]

And I do think there's still possibility of the Box brand returning at some point for that reason.

[Brekkie]

What would have been the situation with licencing the music videos to play - I'm guessing there is a fee per play, either to the record company or the artist (or whoever holds the rights to their music).

[Omnipresent]

What would have been the situation with licencing the music videos to play - I'm guessing there is a fee per play, either to the record company or the artist (or whoever holds the rights to their music).

I assume they pay a licence to PRS for Music, just like other broadcasters:

www.prsformusic.com 

Music TV Licence
PRS for Music can licence TV channels whose main focus is music or music-related…
  Source: www.prsformusic.com

[WillPS]

In fairness, Magic, Kiss and Kerrang live on through their respective radio stations, as well as the latter having its magazine. 4Music, in my opinion, never really had all that much brand power. Considering its heritage, I'd say The Box was the biggest loss out of this mass exodus.

I think there'd be more nostalgia for 4music if they stuck it out with music. As it was they gradually transitioned over a space of 5ish years from being mostly music and videos to being mostly entertainment with a small amount of videos at breakfast time. Then that was 4music for the best part of a decade. Then that became E4 Extra.

When I told people that the music video channels going, and listed 4music among them most were surprised it was still going, yet they knew somehow that The Box, Kerrang, Magic and Kiss were still there. One even said "oh I thought that's now called E4 plus or something" - and the thing is they're absolutely right, it is!

In some ways it's totally baffling they retained the 4music brand at all, as without it they'd have had a neater degree of separation and Box Plus could have been wound up or spun off without any impact on the core '4 brand'. My only theory is that either one or both of the following is true:
> They wanted to keep both non-licensed brands active so they had a choice to use for the licensed channels when the post-Bauer rebrand which never came happened
> Box Plus wanted to keep that link to the mothership brand internally, so that it would perhaps be less easy for a C4 exec to press the 'close' button (in vein, it would turn out)

I agree with others that The Box is now a good surplus asset which it'd be criminal if C4 didn't capitalise somehow.

[James2001]

I've uploaded one of my old Box videos from 1999 here, this is the earliest one I still have:

we.tl 

WeTransfer - Send Large Files & Share Photos Online - Up to 2GB Free
WeTransfer is the simplest way to send your files around the world. Share large …
  Source: wetransfer.com

Notice the very beginning of this video catches the switch over from Diamond Cable to NTL. And it takes them a while to decide how they wanted NTL written, changing from NTL to ntl and finally to ntl:. Then the local version closed down and switched to the Sky version only a couple of months later. I still have the letter they sent us about the name change, as well as some NTL branded goodies they gave out at a local fair at the same time.

Sadly a couple of other videos from 1999 I no longer have, one I know I taped over, another was half an hour or so I'd stuck at the end of a tape of South Park episodes- which then vanished after my sister took it to her bedroom to watch, never found it despite searching, then clearing the room out entirely when she moved out. That one had Start The Commotion on, a music video I really loved and found clever, not seen it on TV since 1999 sadly. And it wasn't the only tape that disappeared in her room, another one had a bizarre The Word-style whole break ad for Pepsi hosted by Terry Christian I've never been able to find online.

[WillPS]

I've uploaded one of my old Box videos from 1999 here, this is the earliest one I still have:

we.tl 

Notice the very beginning of this video catches the switch over from Diamond Cable to NTL. And it takes them a while to decide how they wanted NTL written, changing from NTL to ntl and finally to ntl:. Then the local version closed down and switched to the Sky version only a couple of months later. I still have the letter they sent us about the name change, as well as some NTL branded goodies they gave out at a local fair at the same time.

Sadly a couple of other videos from 1999 I no longer have, one I know I taped over, another was half an hour or so I'd stuck at the end of a tape of South Park episodes- which then vanished after my sister took it to her bedroom to watch, never found it despite searching, then clearing the room out entirely when she moved out. That one had Start The Commotion on, a music video I really loved and found clever, not seen it on TV since 1999 sadly. And it wasn't the only tape that disappeared in her room, another one had a bizarre The Word-style whole break ad for Pepsi hosted by Terry Christian I've never been able to find online.

Awesome upload, will put it on while working. One of the nuicances of having a freecall number was that people seemed to call up and just jam numbers in. I think it only had 3 lines as well, so if 3 people were at it you had to keep redialling to get a chance.

I always found the 0891 call charge warning odd too - even if you didn't have a Diamond Cable phone there was a Nottingham number! In fact my parents were so spooked by it that they only let me place one request until we got a statement so they could see it wasn't chargable!

[James2001]

There was an 0891 number for non-touchtone users at one point (presumably you got through to an operator who'd patch it in), but it had been shut down by then, so I'm not sure why that message still stayed. They still sometimes gave you the number (there were 2 different messages, seemed to vary which one you got) when you called up until the messages were replaced in mid-1999 (by Mitch Johnson of Live & Kicking fame, who did most of the voiceovers on the channel from mid 99 until the November revamp), but calling the number got you nowhere.

I seem to remember you'd often get through more often using the 0115 non-Diamond Cable/NTL number... though it was still free to call from an NTL phone line. The numbers still worked for a day or two after the switch to the Sky version as well. We actually broke a phone through the constant hanging up and redialling...

My family in Derby, on the ex-NYNEX Cable & Wireless (which also became NTL later in 1999) when they finally did get the Box in their package, didn't have the luxury of a free number, that was a premium rate one, even when it was still the locally ran channel. They did have Boxtext though, which the Diamond Cable/NTL version never did.

That first Bryan Adams video, being so white, really does show how bad the picture quality was, most of that video is washed out like an overexposed camera film.

[Brekkie]

So it had local variations on cable when it launched?

[WillPS]

So it had local variations on cable when it launched?

Each cable company put out their own version. There was a national version, which went out on Sky Analogue in the early hours on Granada Plus - but I don't think this aired on cable (at least in Diamond Cable land). This version then became the version which was on Sky Digital from launch, and eventually succeeded all the local versions.

Worth remembering that in the early days of cable many 'channels' were played out locally from tapes, with local ads inserted (or not, just as often!), so it's not quite as weird as it seems now. It did mean that there must've been a dozen-or-so bits of The Box laserdisc video jukebox equipment in the UK at one point tho!