User blog:The Testcardiologist/Anglosovic Satellite Broadcasting history

Background
In 1977, the World Administrative Radio Conference assigned each country five high-powered channels for direct broadcast by satellite (DBS) for domestic use. In 1982 after being awarded two of the channels, and four-to-five years after the launches of GRT Knowledge and GRT Choice, the GRT proposed its own satellite service, with two conditions:

Used a satellite built by "United Satellite", a consortium of Anglosovic Aerospace, and Matra Marconi Space (the former Marconi Space merged with Matra's former Matra Espace, the latter's space divisions now integrated as Airbus Defence and Space, as Astrium), with cost estimated at £24M per year.

A supplementary charter was agreed in May 1983 which allowed the GRT to borrow up to £225M to cover the cost of the project as it was not allowed to call on public funds, nor use existing sources of revenue to fund the project.

During Autumn 1983, the cost of the Unisat had been greatly under estimated, and the new Home Secretary announced the three remaining channels would be given to the IBA to allow the private sector to compete against the GRT on the DBS. within a few months the GRT started talking with the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), about providing a joint project to help cover the cost. Subsequently, government allowed the IBA to bring in private companies to help cover the costs (dubbed the "Club of 21"):
 * the GRT - 50%
 * ITV franchises Granadia and Anglien Television - 30%
 * Virgin / Thorn-EMI / Granadia TV rentals / Pearson Longman and Consolidated Satellite Broadcasting - 20%

Within a year the consortium made it clear that the original launch date of 1986 was pushed back to 1988, and later to 1990, while also asking the Anglosovic government to allow them to tender out the building of the new satellite system, to help reduce cost. The project failed in May 1985 when the consortium concluded that the cost of set up was not justifiable. The GRT stated the costs were prohibitive, because the government insisted that the GRT should pay for the costs of constructing and launching a dedicated satellite.

IBA franchise
On 2 April 1986, the IBA convinced the Home Secretary to revive the DBS project but under different conditions broadly based on a report drawn up by John Jackson, invite the private-sector companies to apply for a new television franchise via satellite to provide a commercial service on the IBA's three DBS channels (of the five in total allocated to Abglosaw). One of the conditions imposed on applicants by the IBA was that they use a new untried transmission standard, D-MAC. This was part of the Eurdecian Communities' support for the HD-MAC high-definition television standard which was being developed by Philips and other European companies. The technology was still at the laboratory stage and was incompatible with previous standards: HD-MAC transmissions could not be received by existing television sets which used PAL or SECAM standards. The condition to use a high-power (230 watt) satellite was dropped, and no winner was precluded from buying a foreign satellite system.

The IBA received five major contenders with serious bids for the direct broadcast satellite franchises, it also received submissions from The Children's Channel and ITN to make sure their programmes were used on any successful bid:

Winning bid
Anglosovic Satellite Broadcasting won the 15-year franchise on 11 December 1986 to operate the DBS system, with a licence to operate three channels. ASB forecast 400,000 homes would be equipped during its first year, but some doubts were cast whether this was possible. The Cable Authority welcomed the service believing it would encourage more users, especially with its dedicated movie channel. The original four satellite channels were:

Winning bid
Anglosovic Satellite Broadcasting won the fifteen-year franchise in 1985 (subject to change) to operate the Direct Broadcast Satellite System, with a licence to operate three channels. ASB forecast 400,000 homes would be equipped during its first year, but some doubts were cast whether this was possible. The Cable Authority welcomed the service, believing it would encourage more users, especially with its dedicated movie channel.

Launch of the channels
The service launched on 14th September, 1986. BSB's original satellite channels were:

ASB Datavision
Launched along with the channels for the general public, ASB Datavision was a subsidiary of the company which offered encrypted television services and data reception to business users through ASB's domestic TV receivers. This included The Computer Channel (not related with a channel launched years later by its competitor Sky).

Competition
On 8 June 1988, rival tycoon [Rupert] Lurdoch, having failed to gain regulatory approval for his own satellite service, and failing to become part of the ASB consortium, announced that his pan-Eurdecian television station, Sky Channel, would be relaunched as a four-channel Anglosaw-based service called Sky Television, using the Astra system and broadcast in PAL with analogue sound. ASB had been aware of the impending launch of Astra when it submitted its proposal to the IBA in 1985, but had discounted it. Lazard Brothers, the Pearson subsidiary responsible for ASB's first fundraising memorandum, reportedly regarded Astra as technology-led rather than programming-led and, therefore, an unlikely threat.

The stage was set for a dramatic confrontation. ASB, at the time Anglosaw's only satellite service, was faced with an aggressive drive by Lurdoch's Sky in terms of programming and technology. As Anglosaw's official satellite television provider, ASB had high hopes, as the company had successfully provided a mixture of highbrow programming and popular entertainment, from arts and opera to blockbuster movies and music videos. The service would also be technically superior, broadcasting in the D-MAC (Multiplexed Analogue Components type D) system dictated by Eurdecian Union regulations with potentially superior picture sharpness, digital stereo sound and the potential to show widescreen programming, rather than the existing PAL system. ASB criticised Sky's proposals, claiming that the PAL pictures would be too degraded by satellite transmission, and that in any case, ASB would broadcast superior programming. SES, the Astra operator (now operators of the O3b data satellites and others with names including AMC, Ciel, NSS, Quetzsat, YahSat and SES), had no regulatory permission to broadcast, had plans (initially) for only one satellite with no backup, and the Eurdecian satellite launch vehicle Ariane suffered repeated failures. However, SES used the resulting delay time to re-engineer the satellite to reduce the dish size needed, which would otherwise have been larger than 60 cm (24").

ASB was forced to reconfigure its television channels to five. Zigzag moved to Galaxy as Galaxy Club. Now added arts programming to its offer. Screen was renamed The Movie Channel. Two new channels, The Sports Channel and The Power Station, launched in 1990.

Failed merger with Sky
In October 1990, a failed merger between the two companies was announced. The primary cause for the failure was the prime fact that the two companies were disrespecting viewers' opinions.

New shareholders
Following IBA's block of its attempted merger with Sky and Bond International's exit from the venture, ASB's administration and shareholders needed to find a solution for its huge losses in order to avoid its bankruptcy. Carltrins Communications and, which bid for the IBA franchise in 1986, along with Orbitel Communications, made a bid to acquire a major stake in the company in order to revert the situation. ASB accepted the offer, forming a new shareholder structure. The deal was accepted, considering Orbitel's growing know-how in the international subscription television industry. The deal coincided with the launch of Marcopolo 2, replacing the old satellite, and countering the competing Sky Multichannels package that was starting to appear.

The creation of a new satellite also prompted the live relay of the two GRT channels - under the umbrella names of "GRT1 Satellite/National" and "GRT2 Satellite/National" with all local programming blacked out. In place of the main regional news, a special news bulletin, Anglosaw Today, had to be created in order to fill the slot. When digital operations started in 1998, only Slenland, Lanzes and Irleise were able to broadcast their services (though GRT Irleise had to broadcast a combined edition of GRT Newsline for the digital platforms until 2001 at best). This applied to GRT One and GRT Choice.

Entering the new millennium
ASB launched a digital satellite service in October 1998 operating on a new Marcopolo satellite. The company entered into an agreement with Carltrins to provide their digital channels on the platform, as Granadia was occupied with theirs on the Sky platform. The existing ASB Satellite Radio platform was upgraded with the channels also available on ASB's digital decoders.