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Cable channels that are no longer with us

kc0ltv said:
- Las Vegas Television Network - started up and failed several times
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I think the most-recent attempt was in 2005, when it used an LPTV, KVTE-LP, as its flagship; also, this incarnation also had Robin Leach as one of the backers; he had since left the company.

I discovered LVTN back in the late-1990s, when I had a C-band dish. I don't think they had anything other than a teaser channel. They showed promos and sample programs of general entertainment programming for the whole family (including an auction show hosted by Steve Rossi and Marty Allen), a local news channel, and a premium service featuring hard-core adult programming (and they were already taking orders). All on one channel. Soon after they announced that they would be moving to a recently-launched satellite, they totally disappeared. I got rid of my big dish soon after I discovered the Canadian gray market, though no doubt they resurfaced again and again.

Does anyone have a more-complete history of LVTN? I would be interested to know.
 
Whale said:
Robnoxious, great post.

Also, I'd like to add CBN, although I never watched it.
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CBN became more well known and popular for its old sitcoms like I Married Joan, Jack Benny and Dobie Gillis than anything else, even the 700 Club.

About CBN, I wonder why Pat Robertson simply didn't just beam Portsmouth-Norfolk, VA's WYAH-TV channel 27 to the bird and call THAT CBN or made WYAH a superstation like WTBS? Both channels in the 70s and early 80s were very similar. Saturdays meant westerns on CBN and it was the same for WYAH too. I don't believe WYAH carried those old game shows like Lets Make A Deal as CBN did but WYAH did have many of the sitcoms and both channels aired more than their share of Pat's 700 Club and other religious programming too.
 
stationi said:
PTBoardOp94 said:
ValueVision is now ShopNBC.

There used to be a competitor to CNBC in the mid-90s that is now defunct. I don't recall the name.
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FNN - Financial News Network
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_News_Network
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There was also another competitor in the late 90s. CNNfn

I can also think of some another channels not around. Most of them are mentioned on wikipedia

Access America - a free to air channel on C-Band
All News Channel
America's Talking - shutdown and MSNBC took its place
B-Mania
Cable Music Channel - Ted Turner's music channel that lasted barely a month. VH1 took its place.
Cable Video Store
Channel America
Comedy Channel
Computer Network - a free to air channel on C-Band
Discovery Wings - now called Military Channel
Classic Sports Network - became ESPN Classic when they bought it.
Festival - a Famly service from HBO.
HA! - merged with Comedy Channel to become CTV then finally Comedy Central
International Music Feed - Replaced with Ovation when they bought it.
Jones Computer Network - folded into Knowledge TV, although somebody on YouTube said this was later called ZDTV but I haven't found any confirmation on that.

Military Channel - not to be confused with Discovery's Military Channel thats on now
MOR Music TV
Movietime - Became E!
National Empowerment TV (later America's Voice)
Network One
Newsport TV (later American Sports Classics for a brief time)
NewsTalk TV
Nostalgia TV - Became Goodlfe TV, then American Life
Nickelodeon GAS - Replaced with The N
Prevue Guide (later Prevue Channel) - Renamed TV Guide Channel, now TV Guide Network
Request TV
Wingspan: The Air & Space Channel - became Discovery Wings
ZAP - PPV Previews
 
Remember The Monitor Channel? It was a short-lived TV expansion of the Christian Science Monitor newspaper. I don't know if it morphed into anything or just disappeared. Also, there was a regional sports channel, Home Team Sports (HTS). It aired proefessional and collegiate sports from DC, MD, VA and NC. I think this is now Fox Sports South.
 
I don't know exactly when HTS went off, although I believe it was around the time that FSN was born of the Prime Network and Sportschannel Americas mergers. There is a Mid Atlantic Sports Network that covers DC, VA, MD, etc.

Do I have this right? The current Fox Sports South is actually the original Turner SportsSouth, and the current SportsSouth is the former TurnerSouth which was available, by God, ONLY in the South..and not even in Florida...
 
RadioDze said:
Remember The Monitor Channel? It was a short-lived TV expansion of the Christian Science Monitor newspaper. I don't know if it morphed into anything or just disappeared. Also, there was a regional sports channel, Home Team Sports (HTS). It aired proefessional and collegiate sports from DC, MD, VA and NC. I think this is now Fox Sports South.
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WQTV-TV channel 68 of Boston (now ION affiliate WBPX-TV) was a major hub of the Christian Science Monitor.
 
Robnoxious said:
* ARTS: Before Nick-At-Night came to be and signed on with "Andy Griffith" and "Car 54, Where Are You?" reruns, when Nickelodeon's silver ball signed off (at 6pm Pacific for me), ARTS signed on with culturally significant music and dance programs. ARTS later became A&E but even though the "A" in A&E stands for Arts it's a far far cry from it's once humble beginnings. I challenge anyone to distinguish the difference between A&E, TBS, FX, and Discovery in their present forms.
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...and the "E" in A&E came from Entertainment, a channel that NBC ran in the early '80s that was struggling before then-parent conglomerate RCA decided to merge it with Hearst-ABC's ARTS (that's where all those British series like "Kelly Montieth" and "The Life and Loves of a She-Devil" came from in the early A&E schedule)...
 
Mark said:
I remember when MTV came on they had all sorts of videos, I used to see Cliff Richard videos. For those who don't know Cliff Richard is a HUGE recording artist everywhere in the world but the United States and Canada. (His few American hits were "Devil Woman," "We Don't Talk Anymore," and "Suddenly [with Olivia Newton-John])

You could see all sorts of vids on MTV.
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...I recall the week or so that they ran the video for "Bang Bang" by the Australian duo Cheetah. Went out and bought both the single and Atlantic Records LP (Rock and Roll Women, produced by the same outfit that gave the world AC/DC) -- and the next week the video was nowhere to be found. Still a damned good LP...
 
The following list is based on the TVRO Years in Review posted here: http://www.nmia.com/~roberts/roberts.html and found here http://groups.google.com/group/rec.video.satellite/msg/e7653da348f9a712?&q=TVRO+year+in+review+1992 . Some of these channels may still exist, but are no longer distributed by satellite, have changed names, escaped my attention, etc. Anybody remember any of them? Some only lasted a few months.

(from 1992)
The Vacation Network
CNN Checkout Channel
Main Street TV
B-TV
Carribean Super Station
World of Better Entertainment TV
New Age TV Network
The Monitor Channel
Trucker TV
Greensheet

(from 1993)
Sky High TV
Viewer's Choice
Your Choice TV
The Idea Channel
Louie the Liquidator
Minority Broadcasting Network (1993 - 1993)
Z-Music
Medical News Network
Access America
Asian TV ?
Tavern TV
Hospitality TV
Home Dish Market Channel
Future Mart (1993-1994)
Via TV
Disney 2
The Irish Channel
GEMS (?)
SUR
Request PPV
Network One

(from 1994)
Canal de Noticias NBC
National Access TV
Cupid Network TV
Carribean Satellite Network
TV!
Talk Channel
Sega Channel

(from 1995)
Home Shopping Club 2 (merged with HSC to become HSN)
Satellite City
H-TV

(from 1996)
Lost Children TV Network
NewsTalk Television
SSN Extra

(from 1997)
Romance Classics (became Women's Entertainment)
Venus Adult TV
Video Catalog Channel
B-Movie Channel

(from 1998 / 1999)
Outlaw Music Channel
Oui TV
Channel Earth
Basil Basset Bingo
African Broadcasting Network
Q2
Recovery Network
The Military Channel

(from 2000)

GEMS Shopping Channel (?)
C3D TV
Independent Music Network (may have never launched?)

(from 2001 / 2002)

Renaissance Channel
KPOC-TV "Global Braodcasting Network"
Triangle TV Network
Vision Channel
Lawyers TV
New Urban Entertainment
Golden Sports

==
Wisdom Channel
Empire Sports Network

Others:

The Space Channel (or Network?)
 
kc0ltv said:
- Mind Extension University (MEU), later The Knowledge Channel: A channel with telecourses. You could even get credit from them.
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This is interesting. Where I live I don't have internet access and didn't see this til I went online at my parents house, yet this morning when I couldn't fall back asleep at 430AM after using the bathroom I thought "What the heck did MEU change its name to before the finally disappeared?".
 
jc said:
Nickelodeon GAS - Replaced with The N
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Except that Dish Network still carries Nick GAS, and The N is still shared time with Noggin. It must be one of those contract issues, just like when Romance Classics became WeTV and Dish still had a seperate feed of "Romance Classics" shared with IFC until they renegotiated their contracts years ago.
 
Which is one of the reasons Dish Network sucks. The other reason being that they don't carry the YES Network (Yankees Entertainment Sports Network). REDSOX fans can see all their games. So can METS fans. (And looks like nearly every other team). But us Yankees fans get shafted. On DISH all we get are the Saturday afternoon telecasts that air on FOX - the 10 or 15 games FOX 61/CW 20 pick up from MY 9 out of NYC, and the 3 or 4 games that air on ESPN.
 
Addressing a few topics I saw in this thread:

Nick-at-nite: Being about 10 years old at the time, I remember when Nick first started broadcasting past 8, and I can remember them "testing" certain shows, i.e. "Lights! Camera! Action!" being on at about 10pm. Once they got the N@N concept, this is what I remember (all times EST):

8pm: Dennis the Menace
8:30pm: Donna Reed
9pm: N@N Movie
11pm: Route 66
midnight: Turkey Television
1am-6am: Repeat lineup from above, same episodes

HTS: It changed its name to "Comcast Sports Net" (CSN Mid-Atlantic in areas where the Philly CSN is also carried, to differentiate") in 2000 or 2001.

I don't believe it's been mentioned yet, but AMC is another channel that's changed - no longer does it refer to itself as "American Movie Classics", the movies are more recent, and it is no longer commercial free.
 
Don't know if anyone mentioned this, but isn't FSN basically the old SportsChannel system?

Does anyone know if the Black Family Channel still exists? When we upgraded to digital cable in late 2006 (yes, that was part of our Christmas list), we had that channel, but it was replaced with some gospel music channel.

Someone mentioned CMT drifting away from country music. That's sad, because they used to show some real gems, like some of Johnny Cash's actual prison concerts (can't remember if they showed Folsom or San Quentin), as well as a documentary on Kinky Friedman's run for governor of Texas.
 
kc0ltv said:
Vision Channel
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I remember this channel, it was carried nationwide on Dish Network for a few months. The station aired old television shows (public domain) like You Bet Your Life, Dobie Gillis, Ozzie & Harriet, and Love That Bob. The station also aired some music videos from groups I've never heard of.

I actually thought it was a pretty good channel and enjoyed watching it the few months it was on the air.

Old web site...
http://web.archive.org/web/20020118194957/http://www.thevisionchannel.com/
 
I can actually think of a few that weren't even listed here.

I think that in the very beginning, when the MTV/Vh-1 suite first began in 2001, Vh-1 Classic was originally called Vh-1 Smooth. From what I understand, I think it may have been Adult Contemporary music videos, which I actually would have liked. But I guess they decided to change it because I don't think the core AC audience usually spends their spare time watching videos. I also remember I think MTV Jams was originally MTV X, which was alternative rock music videos.

I also remember a very short-lived music channel called NUE (New Urban Entertainment). It mostly played Soul, R&B and Hip-Hop, much like Vh-1 Soul, which still exists today.

And about Vh-1 Classic, it has changed quite a bit since it first started. They hardly air any 60s/70s videos at all anymore. For a brief period of time in 2004, they actually started airing 90s videos, but I bet a lot of people complained about that, so now it's mostly 80s. And just like the real Vh-1, they now only play videos in the morning, for the most part. They used to have a different hour be a different block, but now they just have long blocks on one thing, and now all they really have are Totally 80s, Rock Fest, and Metal Mania.
 
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