[Stooky Bill]

In the days before Astra and BSB the satellite channels publicised for those with dishes were all on Intelsat and Eutelsat satellites. They're lower powered ones used mainly for communications between countries. They were used for direct to home (DTH) services but that wasnt their main function.

Some satellites, particular those that use C band have wide beams that will cover both the east coast of America and the west of Europe. A lot of the time there are multiple beams so transponders receive from say the US and transmit to Europe, or vice versa. For obvious reasons they're expensive to hire space on

That channel wouldn't have been on a transatlantic satellite beam for DTH use, it would have been there to feed it to somewhere. Obviously now we don't know where, there are a lot of reasons why a US TV station could be being fed to Europe - a European broadcaster might have been taking it for news or sport coverage, or maybe it was for the use of the US Armed Forces Network (their BFBS)