I
am a bit obsessed with what satellite TV used to be like. It only
used to be the Sky analogue days that really got my imagination; my
brain would occasionally leak half formed memories of super secret
encrypted, fuzzed out channels and being able to view rude German
shows if you squinted a bit. However, I'm also beginning to remember
cool things about the Sky Digital of yesteryear. As I get older, the
good ole days seem to get later and later, sigh.
Here are six channels that I didn't really watch very much at the time, but for some reason are sadly missed now.
Trouble
A tweens/teens/young adults' channel - I'm not sure if it ever had it's very own channel, but it did used to share the day's schedule with Bravo, which I'll get to in a bit.
The
main reason I wish Trouble was still airing now is
that it showed the cream of TV at the time - namely Saved By
The Bell, Heartbreak High and Sweet Valley High. It probably
had that crappy sitcom California Dreams as well,
but I can't be arsed to do that much research. The flaw in my
reasoning is that if Trouble did come back, it
probably wouldn't feature such awesome vintage shows any more, since
at the time they were the hip and happening output for da yoof.
Nowadays it would probably have shows like Victorious and Fred,
like Nickelodeon does now. Probably fifteen years
from now, someone else will write a blog post all about how they
miss Nickelodeon, but that now it would probably
show Mars Colony High and Jet Pack Jessica.
I hope that whole thing just made sense, because it made my head hurt
a little bit to write it.
Bravo
I think there's still a channel in America called Bravo, but I don't think it is related in any way to the now defunct Bravo, which curled up and died on new years day 2011, boo hoo.
I
never fully appreciated Bravo while it was on, but
it was always there in the background, a comforting presence where
you more or less always knew what was going to be on. Cult
programming, ostensibly for men, for the most part. Stuff
like MacGyver, Knight Rider, Dog The Bounty Hunter, and
all kinds of wrestling. I remember them showing Twin
Peaks too. Hang on a minute, I'm distracted. I have a lot of
tabs open and one of them is a discussion about Sky Analogue.
Unfortunately, it now rather looks like a discussion about a very
specialist Sky channel -
Anyway.
Granada Breeze
Main output - menopause and Derek Acorah. Granada Breeze claimed to air shows that women like. Its main target audience appeared to be women who were a bit thick, and who would describe themselves as 'feisty' or 'bubbly' on a dating site. Let me put it this way - if Granada Breeze was still a channel, it would probably air Loose Women for 18 hours a day. And Derek fucking Acorah for the other 6. Maybe I can live without this one after all.
Blighty
Now
then, I bet you've heard of this channel in the UK, but I bet you
never watched it; I know I didn't. And I bet you didn't even know it
had closed down. Because I didn't know, and I'm not going to allow
people to know something I don't.
Blighty aimed
to showcase the best of good old British life. Unfortunately, whoever
was in charge decided that the best we had to offer was shows about
cleaners, people getting arrested, and people nearly dying.
As Blighty, and also as former incarnation UKTV
People, this channel showed the following - A Life Of
Grime, Air Medics, Blackpool Medics, Dog Borstal, Seaside Rescue, Sky
Cops and Traffic Cops, among others. The rest of
the world, if they had ever bothered to look at this channel, which I
doubt, would have thought we were the filthiest, most accident prone
criminals in the world. And I'm talking about all of Britain, not
just Grimsby.
Lifestyle
American
fluff channel for housewives. I remember watching it a lot as a
child, because my grandma had Sky in the early 90s and I used to
watch it with her. Pretty much the only show I ever remember seeing
on there was daytime discussion show Sally Jessy Raphael,
which I used to love, because the episodes would be called things
like Lose weight or I'm leaving you! or Hostage,
anorexia and lottery. Very much a programme that paved the way
for The Jerry Springer Show, and for that we should
all be thankful.
Granada Men and Motors
Looking
at it now, it looks like the channel is called 'nnnn', which is just
wrong. Men and Motors had only two things on its
channel - cars and fanny. Very much a channel aimed, not
surprisingly, at men. During the day there would be endless shows
about cars - big cars, small cars, red cars etc. Then, at 11pm, it
became a haven for sad lonely single men and 12 year old boys
everywhere. Beautiful women would gather round a table and discuss
their differing viewpoints on the EEC and the Northern Ireland peace
process. Not really - they'd get their tits out and talk about how
much they 'definitely loved getting their tits out on TV for money'.
Inevitably it went the way of most other obsolete channels, being booted out in favour of something shiny and new -
Not to worry. There is now a new version of Men and Motors where you can catch glimpses of naked girlies without shame. It is called 'everywhere on the internet', and you don't even have to squint to see it.
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