I reckon that might have been 97/98 (so not long after the channel launched)
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Nick@Nite on air presentation from the late 90s:
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Does anyone know when this started? It says 98, but I doubt that.
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i am not familiar with this specific service but their claim could be right. Niche satellite services like this have been around a long time.
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Ive been playing satellites since the early 2000’s and I dont recall them… unless they are claiming they were TARBS and nobody wants to do that!
Looking at the wayback time machine, they didnt have a website until 2015
The Domain was registered and parked in 2005
I looked at lyngsat in wayback time machine and I cant see anything that suggests they were around back then.
I doubt their claim… however im happy to be proven wrong
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Well, the website says copyright 2018. So, I’m not sure. It is an Aus based company though. They now also have their own Foxtel go style platform.
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Oh now I miss nick@nite!
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Who remembers the preview channels on Galxery and Optus? Basically a channel that showed you what was currently playing on all channels at once. What a time to be alive!
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There have been a lot of satellite TV companies come and go. Some went into receivership and sold their assets to other companies.
My parents were originally signed up to SelecTV in the mid 2000s. They had English language Pay TV channels and international channels on that. Next, it was UBI World TV before it went into receivership and finally they got MY Sat.
I was able to look for a receipt from when they signed up with My Sat. It was dated 2011 for the dish installation and 2012 for their first bill. Unfortunately, they must have thrown out the paperwork from the SelecTV days.
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I wonder if they were somehow associated with both TARBS and UBI World TV - UBI popped up after TARBS collapsed in 04 and then UBI collapsed in 2014…
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There’s a bit of the history of SelecTV on wikipedia.
Founded in 2003 as i-view by Jim Blomfield, a former chief executive officer of Foxtel. Renamed SelecTV in October 2005. In August 2006, WIN Corporation purchased 50.1% of the company.
It had over 40 television channels consisting of English-language channels and foreign-language channels in Greek, Spanish, Italian, German, and Vietnamese.
By June 2010, the company had approximately 45,000 subscribers, well short of its target of 80,000. On 20 August 2010, SelecTV signed an agreement allowing its 22,000 English subscribers to voluntarily change to Foxtel and Austar subscription services without additional charges.
In August 2010, SelecTV sold their Italian language programming to World Media International and in October their Spanish language programming to UBI World TV. In its final days, SelecTV provided subscription packages for Greek programming. On 4 February 2011 SelecTV went into voluntary administration. UBI World TV picked up Greek programming until it also ceased trading in June 2012.
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Foxtel, Austar and Optus had international language channels as well
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Not sure… TARBS and UBI were the same people (husband and wife)
After Intelsat Shutdown Tarbs they just phoenix’d and opened the next day as UBI
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Yes I remember this. I’m not sure what the starting price was when they first started but towards the end (unless there still there) they sold them as specialty channel packs $25 dollars each and the packs were only 1-2 channels plus 1-2 radio channels.
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I remember this being flogged like crazy on WIN TV when out in regional Victoria back in those days. During the daytime I swear there was an ad for SelecTV screened every single ad break.
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A bit like how there’s an ad for a Listnr podcast on every ad break on the SCA stations. Two if you’re lucky!
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Seems a pretty limited selection of channels for $30 a month, especially for 2006 money. Guess the main draw would’ve been the movie channels.
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was fly tv (it was a now-defunct youth-oriented music channel, but, it was dead, because abc2 launched in 05) not on foxtel?
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That is absolutely correct. Fly TV was on Optus Vision and Austar, but not on Foxtel. They refused to carry it.
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