The Movie Channel was a

British television Regular television broadcasts in the United Kingdom started in 1936 as a public service which was free of advertising, which followed the first demonstration of a transmitted moving image in 1926. Currently, the United Kingdom has a collection ...

service which only aired movies. Launched on

British Satellite Broadcasting British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) was a television company, headquartered in London, that provided direct broadcast satellite television services to the United Kingdom. They started broadcasting on 25 March 1990. The company was merged with ...

, The Movie Channel was a predecessor of some of the

Sky Movies Sky Cinema is a British subscription film service owned by Sky Group (a division of Comcast). In the United Kingdom, Sky Cinema channels currently broadcast on the Sky satellite and Virgin Media cable platforms, and in addition Sky Cinema ...

channels, having survived the 1990 merger with Sky Television, another satellite service launched by

Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...

News International News Corp UK & Ireland Limited (trading as News UK, formerly News International and NI Group) is a British newspaper publisher, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the American mass media conglomerate News Corp. It is the current publisher of ...

History

The Movie Channel began on 25 March 1990 was one of the services of

, a consortium formed on 11 December 1986 as the name given to the network during the bidding process was Screen by

Granada Television ITV Granada, formerly known as Granada Television, is the ITV franchisee for the North West of England and Isle of Man. From 1956 to 1968 it broadcast to both the north west and Yorkshire but only on weekdays as ABC Weekend Television was its ...

, Pearson,

Virgin Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...

Anglia Television ITV Anglia, previously known as Anglia Television, is the ITV franchise holder for the East of England. The station is based at Anglia House in Norwich, with regional news bureaux in Cambridge and Northampton. ITV Anglia is owned and operated b ...

and

Amstrad Amstrad was a British electronics company, founded in 1968 by Alan Sugar at the age of 21. The name is a contraction of Alan Michael Sugar Trading. It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in April 1980. During the late 1980s, Amstra ...

. Prior to its launch, BSB signed an exclusive first-run deal with

United International Pictures United International Pictures (UIP) is a joint venture of Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures that distributes their films outside the United States and Canada. UIP also had international distribution rights to certain Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer an ...

(which distributed Paramount,

Universal Universal is the adjective for universe. Universal may also refer to: Companies * NBCUniversal, a media and entertainment company ** Universal Animation Studios, an American Animation studio, and a subsidiary of NBCUniversal ** Universal TV, a t ...

and MGM/ UA releases). One of its first premieres was the 1987

James Bond film James Bond is a fictional character created by British novelist Ian Fleming in 1953. A British secret agent working for MI6 under the codename 007, Bond has been portrayed on film in twenty-seven productions by actors Sean Connery, David Nive ...

, ''

The Living Daylights ''The Living Daylights'' is a 1987 spy film, the fifteenth entry in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions, and the first of two to star Timothy Dalton as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Directed by John Glen, the film's ...

''. Both BSB and Sky Television suffered heavy losses and merged, operating as the newly formed

British Sky Broadcasting Sky UK Limited is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television and broadband Internet services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of ...

. The Movie Channel, along with The Sports Channel remained on air, and it launched on the Astra 1B satellite on 15 April 1991. It continued to broadcast as ''The Movie Channel'' until 31 October 1997 when it was rebranded as Sky Movies Screen 2.

References

External links

The Movie Channel at TVARK (BSB)

The Movie Channel at TVARK (Sky)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Movie Channel (UK), The Defunct British television channels Sky television channels Movie channels in the United Kingdom Television channels and stations established in 1990 Television channels and stations disestablished in 1997 1990s in the United Kingdom 1990s in British television History of television in the United Kingdom

History

See also

References

External links