I think it’s evident from the channel line ups in 1996, that you can see why Foxtel was more successful in the long run and pushed Optus and Galaxy out.
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Some of those Foxtel channels were Galaxy channels originally though, TV1, Showtime, Fox Sports, Red, could’ve even been a couple of the others?
Foxtel were getting them supplied from Galaxy & I think had something like a $4 or $5 million deal over about 25 years contract, but Galaxy went broke, & Foxtel took those channels in house to themselves.
If it was 22 years since Galaxy started, & if it was a 25 year supply contract, Foxtel could’ve still been paying for those channels today.
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Sports AFL and Sports Australia became C7 Sport until it’s closure in 2002
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Ah I only remember Galaxy being a satellite service. Being from WA I assume we never got the wireless cable microwave stuff.
We also never got Austar here in the West; when Galaxy collapsed all WA customers moved to Foxtel’s satellite service which was completely different to Foxtel cable until Foxtel Digital unified them.
Showtime, Encore, TV1, Arena were originally Galaxy channels, there was Quest which became Discovery Channel, Red eventually became Channel V, Premier Sports became Fox Sports.
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There was also Arena, Discovery/Quest was originally a Galaxy channel and, I think, a children’s channel called “Max”.
My first experience with Pay TV was with my sister’s Galaxy service. I remember being disappointed at the lack of CNN, BBC World and Sky News on Galaxy being a television news nut. I used to go into an electronics store in Crows Nest to play with the decoders and compare what she was getting on the south coast with the superior channels on offer through Foxtel and OptusVision to Sydney subscribers.
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I always thought Austar was only regional and not in the metro cities. Always saw the Austar signs at Motels/Hotels on the Gold Coast.
Wasn’t the Gold Coast some weird abnormality where they had Foxtel cable (where I stayed in January 2006, it was still an analogue box!) and Austar satellite?
My sister in the Southern Highlands south of Campbelltown had East Coast Pay Television satellite, which was later purchased by Austar. In the days of analogue television she couldn’t get Sydney television and only got fuzzy pictures from Wollongong, so they felt they needed pay television. After digital television started they then got a perfect picture from both Sydney and Wollongong, and they still have Foxtel satellite.
Yes, their office was in Fyshwick across the road from where The Good Guys are now, iirc.
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Yeah, that’s how it operated on the Gold Coast from memory. I think Prime, NBN and Ten Northern NSW were also carried on Fox cable there in the analogue days.
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I remember before the Austar name they were calling themselves CETV just a simple ad saying we are in your area now back in 1996 in Central west NSW.
It was the same channels that galaxy offered except the comedy channel took a while to be available.
I remember a few years later there was a code going around that if you changed the settings you would reset the box and have all of the optus vision channels which was very good.
So would just switch between both Austar and Optus.
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Not in Australia and I believe its been phased out worldwide
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I think Wireless Cable lasted until Austar went “digital”, but were moving customers over before that - who then looked at redeploying the spectrum for WiMAX broadband (from memory they only ever launched in Tamworth and Wagga Wagga)
Wireless Cable had a limited capacity - when Austar added the suite of channels from Optus Vision, thats when the gulf between the products widened
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Was that the ABC news channel that had to shut down because nobody ended up carrying it, except for the in-house CCTV system in Parliament House??
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Yep - Foxtel shunned it in favour of the BSkyB/Nine/Seven backed Sky News Australia and Optus followed suit
As what was said a few posts ago, we on the gold coast was foxtel cable with bigpond hfc from street.
My grandmother was living in Parkwood for 30 years and she had foxtel sat before they bundled it together with bigpond.
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They went bust in 2011.
MySat took over but over time scaled back their offerings.
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Here is a news story about Al Jazeera joining UBI World Tv
