NBC Europe (formerly Super Channel, and later NBC Channel) was a

satellite television Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location.ITU Radio Regulations, Section IV. Radio Stations and Systems ...

network based in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

that broadcast across

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, and it was picked up by various European

cable systems Cable television is a system of delivering television broadcast programming, programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This ...

where available. The network was based in the heart of

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, 19-22

Rathbone Place Rathbone Place is a street in central London that runs roughly north-west from Oxford Street to Percy Street. it is joined on its eastern side by Percy Mews, Gresse Street, and Evelyn Yard. The street is mainly occupied by retail and office pre ...

in the same building as

Music Box A music box (American English) or musical box (British English) is an automatic musical instrument in a box that produces Musical note, musical notes by using a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder (geometry), cylinder or disc to pluck ...

, would later become the home of

CNN International Cable News Network International or CNN International (CNNi, simply branded on-air as CNN) is an international television channel and website, owned by CNN Worldwide. CNN International carries news-related programming worldwide; it cooperates ...

until 2007. For a number of months, the transmission facilities were provided by Molinare at Fouberts Place, and returned briefly until the Marcucci family acquired

Melrose House Melrose House is a stately mansion and museum located opposite Burgers Park in Pretoria, South Africa. History Built in 1886 by the prosperous Pretoria businessman George Jesse Heys, it was named after the famous Melrose Abbey in Scotland. Mel ...

, 14 Lanark Square in Limeharbour where it set up as a state-of-the-art broadcasting centre.

History

1987–1993: Super Channel

Launched on 30 January 1987, replacing the 24-hour music channel

, it was co-owned by all but one of the ITV companies at the time in the

Virgin Group Virgin Group Ltd is a British multinational venture capital conglomerate founded by Richard Branson and Nik Powell in February 1970. Virgin Group's date of incorporation is listed as 1989 by Companies House, who class it as a holding compa ...

had a majority stake in Music Box (60%) and would own 15% of the equity with the rest being split between ITV franchise holders including

Granada Granada ( ; ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada (Spain), Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence ...

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

LWT London Weekend Television (LWT; now part of the non-franchised ITV London region) was the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties at weekends, broadcasting from Fridays at 5.15 pm (7:00 pm from 1968 ...

, Central, Anglia, Tyne Tees,

Ulster Ulster (; or ; or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional or historic provinces of Ireland, Irish provinces. It is made up of nine Counties of Ireland, counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kingdom); t ...

Grampian Grampian () was one of nine local government regions of Scotland. It was created in 1975 by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 and took its name from the Grampian Mountains. The regional council was based in Aberdeen. The region was abol ...

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

Border Borders are generally defined as geography, geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by polity, political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other administrative divisio ...

, HTV, TSW and TVS, while

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after th ...

and

TV-am TV-am was a TV company that broadcast the ITV franchise for breakfast television in the United Kingdom from 1 February 1983 until 31 December 1992. The station was the UK's first national operator of a commercial breakfast television franchise ...

were the only two of the contractors not to participate.''Transnational Television in Europe: Reconfiguring Global Communications Networks''
Jean K. Chalaby, I.B.Tauris, page 25 It competed with Sky Channel (forerunner of

Sky One Sky One was a British pay television channel operated and owned by Sky Group (a division of Comcast). Originally launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, it was Europe's first satellite and non- terrestrial channel. From 31 July 1989, ...

), which was the only other major pan-European satellite television network around at the time. Unlike Sky Channel, syndicated output was less

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

and more

an. Much of its programming was sourced from ITV or the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

as part of "Best of British", and it also featured

ITN Independent Television News (ITN) is a UK-based media production and broadcast journalism company. ITN is based in London, with bureaux and offices in Beijing, Brussels, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, New York City, New York, Paris, Sydney and Washin ...

-produced news bulletins. It also broadcast syndicated non-British European programmes, including the

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

sitcom '' Zeg 'ns Aaa'' (broadcast on the original station VARA, with English

subtitles Subtitles are texts representing the contents of the audio in a film, television show, opera or other audiovisual media. Subtitles might provide a transcription or translation of spoken dialogue. Although naming conventions can vary, caption ...

). Super Channel fared poorly, due to United Kingdom-based programming seen as unsuitable for European audiences, such as drama being seen as "too violent" or "too realistic", as well as a dispute with the British actors' union who demanded additional fees for viewing by audiences which meant that it could no longer offer the 'Best of British to a European audience'. Within a year, the ITV companies (now including only Granada, TVS, Yorkshire Television, and Anglia Television) sold the network to the

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

Marcucci family, owners of

Videomusic Videomusic was an Italian music channel and one of the first music channels in Europe. It was launched in early 1984 and was owned by Marialina Marcucci and Pier Luigi Stefani (VM's Managing Director). It used to air from a location called "Il Ci ...

, the first music channel in Italy, with a minority stake being held by

Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English business magnate who co-founded the Virgin Group in 1970, and controlled 5 companies remaining of once more than 400. Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneu ...

's Virgin plc. The programming changed from British to

pan-European Pan-European can refer to: * Pan-European identity * Pan-European corridors ** Pan-European Corridor X ** Pan-European Corridor Xa * Pan European Game Information * Pan-European Institute * Pan-European nationalism * Pan-European Oil Pipeline * ...

, although it continued carrying ''

ITN World News ''ITN World News'' was a newscast shown during the late 1980s and most of the 1990s. It was either shown on cable or satellite television, or shown internationally. The newscast was broadcast from London, England, and was produced by Independent ...

'' bulletins.

1993–1998: NBC steps in

On 2 October 1993, the station which was in severe financial difficulties was taken over by the American company

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston. Over the year ...

, then-parent of the

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

television network, and became NBC Super Channel. From 9 September 1996, the channel was renamed NBC Europe, but was from then on almost always referred to as simply "NBC" on the air, although the network (along with its sister station

CNBC Europe Consumer News and Business Channel Europe (referred to on air simply as CNBC) is a business and financial news television channel which airs across Europe. The station is based in London, where it shares the Adrian Smith (architect), Adrian S ...

launched on 11 March earlier that year) was transmitted from the GE building in

Hammersmith Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. It ...

. The transmission suite used cutting edge Pro-Bel COMPASS and MAPP automation at the time, and Profile video servers for all

commercials A television advertisement (also called a commercial, spot, break, advert, or ad) is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization. It conveys a message promoting, and aiming to market, a product, service or idea. ...

and promotions, within programmes continued to be played from tape automatically. Most of NBC's prime time programming was produced in Europe, but after 10.00pm (

CET CET or cet may refer to: Places * Cet, Albania * Cet, standard astronomical abbreviation for the constellation Cetus * Colchester Town railway station (National Rail code CET), in Colchester, England Arts, entertainment, and media * Comcast En ...

) on weekday evenings as the channel aired ''

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno ''The Tonight Show with Jay Leno'' is an American television talk show broadcast by NBC. The show is the fourth and sixth installment of ''The Tonight Show''. Hosted by Jay Leno, it aired from May 25, 1992, to May 29, 2009, replacing ''The Ton ...

'', ''

Late Night with Conan O'Brien ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'' is an American television talk show broadcast by NBC. The show is the second installment of the ''Late Night (franchise), Late Night'' franchise originally established by David Letterman. Hosted by Conan O'Brie ...

'' and ''

Later Later may refer to: * Future The future is the time after the past and present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the unavoidability of the futur ...

'' to hence its slogan "Where the Stars Come Out at Night". Most news programmes were broadcast on NBC Europe including ''

Dateline A dateline is a brief piece of text included in news articles that describes where and when the story was written or filed, though the date is often omitted. In the case of articles reprinted from wire services, the distributing organization is ...

'', '' Time and Again'' and ''

NBC Nightly News ''NBC Nightly News'' (titled as ''NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas'' for its weeknight broadcasts ) is the flagship daily evening News broadcasting#Television, television news program for NBC News, the news division of the NBC television network ...

'', which was aired live. ''

The Today Show ''Today'' (also called ''The Today Show'') is an American morning television show that airs weekdays from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on NBC. The program debuted on January 14, 1952. It was the first of its genre on American television ...

'' was also initially shown live in the afternoons, but was later broadcast the following morning instead, by which time it was more than half a day old. This meant that all the

NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Media Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which is itself a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's various operations r ...

portions had to be replaced with European updates produced by

in London, also supplied the network with the main newscasts before and after the GE takeover. European

weather forecasts Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloud cover, cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmo ...

was produced by the

at first, but was later taken over by NBC in the United States occasionally. NBC Europe carried virtually no

prime time Prime time, or peak time, is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for television shows. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...

entertainment programmes shown in the United States, because they were usually owned and distributed by other studios under the fin-syn rules (which did not apply in Europe). NBC would have had to buy the rights for each country in order to show which would have been too expensive. Even for shows that NBC Studios owned itself, it was generally more financially viable to sell the rights by country either to broadcast or cable and satellite channels than to air them on NBC Europe. The most notable exceptions to this rule were brief runs of '' Profiler'' and '' The Pretender'', as well as short-lived American sitcoms '' Union Square'' and '' Mr. Rhodes''. That is widely considered to be one of the main reasons why NBC Europe was ultimately not a success.

1998–2005: As a German network

NBC Europe stopped broadcasting to most of Europe on 30 June 1998, when the Deutsche Fernsehnachrichten Agentur took it over and moved to

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

. Most of the satellite feeds became either

National Geographic Channel National Geographic (formerly National Geographic Channel; abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo or Nat Geo TV) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by the National Geographic Global Networks unit of Disney Enter ...

CNBC CNBC is an American List of business news channels, business news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group, a unit of Comcast's NBCUniversal. The network broadcasts live business news and analysis programming during the morning, Day ...

. NBC Europe continued to operate on Germany's cable television networks, fed by one digital satellite link from Eutelsat II-F1 (later Hot Bird 5). On 30 November, the first German programming started airing, assembled from content from

GIGA Giga- ( or ) is a metric prefix, unit prefix in the metric system denoting a factor of a Long and short scales, short-scale billion or long-scale milliard (109 or 1,000,000,000). It has the symbol G. ''Giga-'' is derived from the Ancient Greek, ...

and

, as well as other shows. In 2004,

NBC Universal NBCUniversal Media, LLC (abbreviated as NBCU and doing business as NBCUniversal or Comcast NBCUniversal since 2013) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate that is a subsidiary of Comcast and headquartered at 30 ...

took over the DFA and consequently NBC Europe. On 29 September 2005, NBC Europe was split into GIGA and later replaced by the new channel

Das Vierte Das Vierte (English: The Fourth) was a German entertainment channel replaced in January 2014 by Disney Channel. History Das Vierte was launched by NBC Universal Global Networks (NUGN) in 2005 as an all-drama programming channel. The channel rea ...

. The service continued broadcasting with its licence on cable, satellite,

IPTV Internet Protocol television (IPTV), also called TV over broadband, is the service delivery of television over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. Usually sold and run by a Telephone company, telecom provider, it consists of broadcast live telev ...

and

digital cable Digital cable is the distribution of cable television using digital data and video compression. The technology was first developed by General Instrument. By 2000, most cable companies offered digital features, eventually replacing their previo ...

. It broadcast a special version on cable television including CNBC Europe and GIGA (up until 31 March 2006). This was necessary to keep both the licence and the cable channel. On 25 September 2012,

The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16 ...

acquired Das Vierte and closed the service from 31 December 2013. On 17 January 2014, the network was replaced by Disney Channel Germany switching from

pay television Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to Subscription business model, subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichan ...

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscri ...

Programming

Due to limitations on the amount of entertainment shows on the network, NBC Europe (including

) aired a number of original programming in tandem with

content that had not been aired in Europe beforehand. These include: * ''49win'' * ''Agenda'' * ''Best of the Ticket'' * ''Blue Night'' * ''

Bonanza ''Bonanza'' is an American Western television series that ran on NBC from September 12, 1959, to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 431 episodes, ''Bonanza'' is NBC's longest-running Western, the second-longest-running Western series on ...

'' * ''

Business Insiders ''Business Insiders'' is a business news talk show aired weekdays from 6 to 6:30 PM ET on CNBC CNBC is an American List of business news channels, business news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group, a unit of Comcast's NBCUn ...

'' * '' Business Tonight'' * '' Business Weekly'' * '' Chinese News Europe'' * '' CNBC Business Weekly'' * '' CNBC European Squawk Box'' * '' CNBC U.S. Squawk Box'' * ''

'' * ''Daybreak'' * '' The Detectives'' * ''Disaster Chronicles'' * ''Eco Record'' * ''

Equal Time The equal-time rule ( 47 U.S. Code § 315 - Candidates for public office) specifies that American radio and television broadcast stations must provide equivalent access to competing political candidates. This means, for example, that if a statio ...

'' * '' European Business Today'' * ''

Father Murphy ''Father Murphy'' is an American Western drama television series that aired on the NBC network from November 3, 1981, to September 18, 1983. Michael Landon created the series, was the executive producer, and directed the show in partnership w ...

'' * ''Film Europe'' * '' FT Business Today'' * '' FT Business Tonight'' * '' FT European Business Today'' * ''GIGA green'' (later ''GIGA@ the gate'') * ''GIGA Games'' * ''GIGA Heartbeat'' * '' Gillette World Sport Special'' * ''Holidays'' * ''Hotline'' * ''

Inside Edition ''Inside Edition'' is an American tabloid television program that is distributed in Broadcast syndication, first-run syndication by CBS Media Ventures. Having premiered on January 9, 1989, it is the longest-running syndicated-newsmagazine progr ...

'' * '' ITN Super Channel News'' * ''

'' * '' Kinowelt-De News'' * ''

'' * ''

Mancuso, F.B.I. ''Mancuso, F.B.I.'' is an American crime drama television series created by Steve Sohmer, which was aired by NBC from October 13, 1989 to April 24, 1990, as part of its 1989–90 schedule. ''Mancuso, F.B.I.'' stars Robert Loggia as Nick Mancu ...

'' * ''Max's European Home Video Show'' * ''

MediaTelevision ''Media Television'' is a Canadian television newsmagazine series created by Moses Znaimer, which aired weekly on Citytv and NewNet from 1991 to 2004. It was also syndicated internationally, airing in over 100 countries around the world at some po ...

'' * ''The Mix'' * '' Money Wheel'' * '' European Money Wheel'' * '' U.S. Money Wheel'' * '' Mr. Rhodes'' * '' MSNBC Internight Live'' * ''

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...

'' * ''NBC GIGA'' * ''NBC GIGA Real'' * ''NBC Music Legends'' * '' NBC News Special Reports'' * '' NBC News Today'' * ''

'' * '' NBC Sports News'' * '' NHL International Weekly'' * ''

On the Air On the Air may refer to: * ''On the Air'' (album), 1984, by Billy Preston * ''On the Air'' (TV series), an American sitcom * ''On the Air'' (film), a 1934 British musical comedy * On the Air (band), an English rock band * On the Air (radio play),a ...

'' * ''

Personal Personal may refer to: Aspects of persons' respective individualities * Privacy * Personality * Personal, personal advertisement, variety of classified advertisement used to find romance or friendship Companies * Personal, Inc., a Washington, ...

'' * ''

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also known as the PGA Tour, the PGA Tour Champion ...

'' * '' The Pretender'' * '' Profiler'' * '' Real Personal'' * ''

Riviera () is an Italian word which means , ultimately derived from Latin , through Ligurian . It came to be applied as a proper name to the coast of Liguria (the Genoa region in northwestern Italy) in the form , then shortened in English. Riviera may a ...

'' * '' The Rolonda Watts Show'' * ''

Saturday Night Live ''Saturday Night Live'' (''SNL'') is an American Late night television in the United States, late-night live television, live sketch comedy variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Michaels and Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC. The ...

'' * '' The Selina Scott Show'' * ''

The Site ''The Site'' is an hour-long television program devoted to the Internet revolution. It debuted in July 1996 with MSNBC's launch, and aired Monday through Saturday, reaching 35 million homes. Soledad O'Brien hosted ''The Site'', along with her ...

'' * ''SMS Challenge'' * ''Super Channel Documentaries'' * ''Super Channel Sports Specials'' * '' Super Shop'' * ''Talkin' Blues'' * ''Talkin' Jazz'' * '' Time and Again'' * ''

'' * ''Today's Business'' * ''

'' * ''Travel Express'' * '' U.S. Market Wrap Up'' * '' Union Square'' * ''Victory'' * ''Videofashion'' * ''West of Moscow'' * ''Young Soul Rebels''

References

External links

Superchannel Launch - Complete and in full

Uphill Struggle for Pan-Europe Stations : Televising to a Continent
article from ''

International Herald Tribune The ''International Herald Tribune'' (''IHT'') was a daily English-language newspaper published in Paris, France, for international English-speaking readers. It published under the name ''International Herald Tribune'' starting in 1967, but its ...

''; 16 March 1994 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Nbc Europe History of television in the United Kingdom Defunct television channels in the United Kingdom Defunct television channels in Germany Defunct television channels in the Netherlands Television channels and stations established in 1987 Television channels and stations disestablished in 1998 Television channels and stations disestablished in 2005 2005 disestablishments in Germany NBC Satellite television 1980s in Europe 1980s in British television 1980s in Dutch television 1980s in German television 1990s in Europe 1990s in British television 1990s in Dutch television 1990s in German television 2000s in Europe 2000s in German television

History

1987–1993: Super Channel

1993–1998: NBC steps in

1998–2005: As a German network

Programming

See also

References

External links