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(31-05-2023, 07:27 PM)Humphrey Hacker Wrote: I suppose it's down to the demographics. After a hard week at work people just want to sit down and watch something light hearted and entertaining not be subjected to x hours of opera in a foreign language.
Well there is that, but I mean if you're into opera (which aren't all in foreign languages you understand, there are English ones too
) you'll already probably already in regular attendance at the Royal Albert Hall anyway, and of course watching on the telly isn't the same as watching it from the audience while wearing a penguin tuxedo (like most things really)
No its probably safe to say the ITA vision was one thing and the reality was different. Once you start adding the need to make money into the equation the direction of travel was obvious - lowest common denominator programming, not helped as such by the likes of the early ITV companies pretty much running out of money to feed this new machine.
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(31-05-2023, 10:23 PM)Neil Jones Wrote: Well there is that, but I mean if you're into opera (which aren't all in foreign languages you understand, there are English ones too ) you'll already probably already in regular attendance at the Royal Albert Hall anyway, and of course watching on the telly isn't the same as watching it from the audience while wearing a penguin tuxedo (like most things really)
No its probably safe to say the ITA vision was one thing and the reality was different. Once you start adding the need to make money into the equation the direction of travel was obvious - lowest common denominator programming, not helped as such by the likes of the early ITV companies pretty much running out of money to feed this new machine.
I couldn't call myself a "culture vulture" but it does boil down to money. I can understand the ITA's desire to go upmarket but I think the changes the network went through in 1968 were destabilising (the '68 strike and the "merger" of ABC and Rediffusion) and the piggy bank was squealing.
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You only very rarely even get that sort of content on the BBC, who don't have to worry about viewing figures, so it's not the sort of think that would ever fly on ITV, not even in 1968 with no commercial competition.
The only opera the British TV public have ever embraced is probably the Jerry Springer one
(This post was last modified: 01-06-2023, 12:30 AM by
James2001.)
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Stumbled onto this a few days ago. Community radio host and blogger Johnny Robinson (Jonkasonic) has been working on a light-hearted review of the history of some of the pioneering British and pan-European satellite & cable channels. Part 2 of the 90s retrospective set to follow soon.
www.youtube.com
www.youtube.com
(This post was last modified: 01-06-2023, 03:46 PM by
Medianext.MX.)
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(01-06-2023, 03:44 PM)Medianext.MX Wrote: Stumbled onto this a few days ago. Community radio host and blogger Johnny Robinson (Jonkasonic) has been working on a light-hearted review of the history of some of the pioneering British and pan-European satellite & cable channels. Part 2 of the 90s retrospective set to follow soon.
www.youtube.com
www.youtube.com
I've seen it. Brilliant stuff.
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youtu.be
The moment when Sky One was immediately shut off on Virgin Media from the midnight of 1st March 2007.
Hardly any announcement nor acknowledgement either.
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(07-06-2023, 06:48 PM)Allanbuzzy Wrote: youtu.be
The moment when Sky One was immediately shut off on Virgin Media from the midnight of 1st March 2007.
Hardly any announcement nor acknowledgement either.
The day when it was replaced with the words Sky Snooze Try BBC, what an amazing find!
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The black EPG in that video would've been an NTL box after a firmware update from Virgin presumably
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(07-06-2023, 08:30 PM)Tola Wrote: The black EPG in that video would've been an NTL box after a firmware update from Virgin presumably
I had Telewest and as I recall they didn't update the firmware straight after the big rebrand on 8th February 2007. So not surprised that the NTL branding on the boxes was still around at that point.
The "Sky Snooze" placeholder names only lasted a very short time, as obviously Sky weren't happy with it, but even Richard Branson was unhappy about it.
It's interesting thinking of the moves that happened as a direct result of this - such as the launch of Virgin 1 and Setanta Sports News. It was fun when they rebranded to Virgin Media and did these big bold moves after years of Telewest and NTL sort of being In the shadows a bit.
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(07-06-2023, 08:30 PM)Tola Wrote: The black EPG in that video would've been an NTL box after a firmware update from Virgin presumably
That’s correct, I’m the uploader of the clip above. The EPG changed in September 2006 replacing the design we’d had since 2001, and soon after that clip it changed again once TV On Demand was added which I think coincided with a new box. Here’s a montage from various videos.
Sky disappearing was extremely frustrating at the time, and as mentioned in the description it took a ridiculously long time to be sorted out, not reappearing until November 2008, twenty months later. By then I’d missed dozens of episodes of The Simpsons and Lost that I never did fully catch up with.