-------------------------- Skyguide Issue 001 Page 1 --------------------------------- SKYGUIDE UK --------------------------------- | | | Your digest of the latest news in the world of Satellite & Cable Television | | | ----------------------- Week Ending Sat 20th March 1993 ----------------------- * RED HOT BANNED On the day that the Home Secretary announced he thought letting children into public houses was a good idea, Heritage Secretary Peter Brooke announced in a commons written reply that in 15 days it will be a criminal offence to sell subscriptions to, or equipment to recieve, Red Hot Television, partly because of the danger to children. He said: "This Government will not tolerate exploitive material of a sexually explicit or gratuitously violent nature. The sexually explicit content of Red Hot Television is unacceptable and has the potential to cause great harm to children who may see it. The service exceeds, by a wide margin, the standards we expect from UK broadcasters and I see no reason why material of this sort should be avaiable in the UK simply because it is broadcast from overseas." The Government has written to both Red Hot Television and the EC Commission, informing them that they intend to proscribe the service pursuant to the EC Broadcasting Directive. The EC Broadcasting Directive also ensures freedom of reception of television channels, providing they are legal in the EC country from which they originate The Government's decision of today may well infringe this agreement, and it is likely that it is this that will be Continental's main point of attack in the courts. Britain's view of pornography would appear to be very much out of step with Europe, it being the only EC country to outlaw hardcore. Laws made in Britain, however, only apply to Britain. The UK Goverment would have no means of preventing a company outside the UK from selling decoders or subscriptions, although it could prevent such a company from advertising in any UK-controlled media. Continental Television will challenge the Government in court, saying they are happy that they have the chance to settle the matter once and for all. * RED HOT VIDEOCRYPT? Meanwhile, rumours are currently circulating that Red Hot Television will change from their current scrambling system to a variant of Videocrypt. Continental Television, the owners of the channel, have been saying for some time now that they will change their scrambling system in early 1993, although from previous information it was expected that the Cryptovision system would be used. The latest information is that scrambling will be achieved by means of "Enigma 1", originally thought to be a standalone decoder, but now thought to be a card which would function in a Videocrypt decoder. Videocrypt decoders are widely available in the UK, being the scrambling system used by Sky. Red Hot Television (formerly Red Hot Dutch, until EC pressure forced them to move their uplink from Holland) currently face two problems in the UK: Firstly that their current scrambling system, SAVE, is notoriously insecure and has already been widely pirated. Owners of some satellite systems need only flick a switch to invert the video for a watchable picture - hardly a secure access-control system. ========================== skyguide/skyguide #3, from bignoise, 2744 chars, Mar 19 19:20 93 This is a comment to message 2. There are comments to this message. -------------------------- Skyguide Issue 001 Page 2 The second, and perhaps most important problem, is that recent media attention has been focused on the channel by the UK press, in turn attracting government attention amid calls to ban the channel. While it would be impossible to prevent the channel being beamed into the UK, a ban on the sale of decoders would prevent the channel being legally subscribed to. This is where the card-based system comes in. As the majority of UK satellite viewers own Videocrypt decoders, Videocrypt cards to watch the channel could be posted to subscribers from elsewhere in Europe - thus there would be no actual decoders for the channel being sold to be banned. The scrambling is expected to change on March 20th, and at the time of writing no-one would appear to have seen the mysterious Enigma 1, be it a card, a decoder, or anything else. * CARTOONS & TNT .. AN EXPLOSIVE COMBINATION It has now been confirmed that Turner International, owners of CNN, will be taking a transponder on Astra 1C to launch two new services. The Cartoon Network, already running in the US, shows non-stop cartoons, mostly from the archives of Hanna Barbera which was acquired by Turner earlier last year. The channel will run from 6am to 8pm. >From 8pm onwards the transponder will carry Turner's entertainment channel TNT (Turner Network Television), also already running in the US. The channel screens made-for-TV movies, classic American movies from a library of some 2,500 acquired by Turner, and "premium" entertainment. Initially the services will be clear, but a spokesman said that encryption was being looked into. Promotions for the new channels are being carried on CNN International. * BYE BYE JUKEBOX The Cable Jukebox, a video request channel currently carried on a number of UK cable television networks, closed suddenly on March 15th. As a sister channel to the Lifestyle Satellite Jukebox, which closed at the end of January, it was launched in 1987 by WHSTV (WH Smith Television), then owners of the Lifestyle and Screensport channels, now also defunct. Many cable networks will be carrying rival jukebox service "The Box" in its place. Owned and operated by the American company Video Jukebox Network, it was launched at the Cable and Satellite show in 1992. While the Cable Jukebox offered just 75 tracks to choose from in an entire month, The Box offers 500 videos to choose from at any one time, from a library of over 2,000 laserdiscs. Tracks are requested by means of a premium rate telephone number. Each "The Box" is equipped with an AVS broadcast-quality standards converter worth around 20,000 to convert the American NTSC format video into UK PAL. ========================== skyguide/skyguide #4, from bignoise, 1822 chars, Mar 19 19:20 93 This is a comment to message 3. -------------------------- Skyguide Issue 001 Page 3 * PHILIPS CLAIM 50 MILLION FROM SKY A High Court has ruled in favour of a damages claim made by electronics company Philips. The company alleges that Sky Television beached a contract between themselves and BSB when the two operators merged in November 1990. Up to 40,000 receivers had been ordered by BSB from Philips, an order which was cancelled when the merger took place. Philips is claiming up to 50 million in damages. BSkyB is appealing against the ruling. * COUNTRY MUSIC FOR EUROPE Q-CMR (Quality Country Music Radio) is expected to launch in Europe at the upcoming Cable & Satellite show in April. The station will play non-stop country music, and is backed by Country Music Television in the USA. Programming will be predominantly American, but material from the UK and Europe will also be broadcast. The station is expected to utilise the frequency vacated by Euronet, on the Sky Sports transponder. (Mono, 7.56, Astra Transponder 20) Country Music is growing in popularity in the UK. Sales of albums in the UK Country Chart rose 43% last year and cable operators are finding Country Music Television Europe to be a popular channel. * BBC RADIO FOR EUROPE Satellite households all across Europe can now enjoy some of the BBC's terrestrial radio services. The BBC is now utilising the audio subcarriers on its co-venture satellite channel UK Gold to transmit BBC Radio One, Four, Five, and World Service to the whole of Europe. All services are in mono, and can be found on the 7.38, 7.56, 7.74 and 7.92 audio subcarriers of UK Gold, which itself can be found on Transponder 23 of the Astra 1B satellite, 19.2 degrees east. *** THE END