Big History Question, Anybody?

[BlowMeUpTom]

Alright, when I was a kid, my mom subscribed to a movie channel, I believe it was first called Spotlight, then it changed to Channel One, when I last remember it was SelectTV, it was one channel (channel 6) and they only showed movies, it was like movies without cable, does anybody remember anything about this? who owned it? was it exclusive to Utah? or was it a national thing? I cant find anything about it anywhere on the Internet, so I started thinking maybe it was a Utah thing, I was pretty young, so I didn't really care to much about the details, I just remember it had some of the best programming Ive ever seen, just off the wall underground, and obscure movies, a far cry from any movie channel Ive seen since!

[Always]

AHHH CHANNEL ONE... Yes my first movie channel... WGN TV during daytime hours then they showed movies starting at 6pm then the flashing scramble for adult movies after 1am. I do remember the signal came from the old Murray smokestacks and the owners I believe was a communication company next to the smoke stacks but darnit cannot remember there name. Never really took off but I know alot people used it... I still see the old antenna's on some homes..

[Terry]

I'm pretty sure Sam Skaggs son, Donny, owned Channel One. Sam Skaggs owned Skaggs Drug Stores, Osco Drug, Jewel Tea, and a big grocery chain - don't remember the name. The signal was on microwave from the Murray smokestack. Channel One had a building very nearby the smokestack I think. Donny Skaggs had some other business going too. I don't remember exactly what, but I think it was communications related.

[oldradio]

Not sure about Channel One and microwaving the signal from the Murray smokestack, but SelecTV itself was a national satellite channel in the mid-80's. It used to be on a Westar satellite, of which they are no more either. First run movies all day in the clear, until adult movies took over late night. Later became a scrambled service and 24-hr adult until it dissappeared.
Now Selectv is a DBS Service in Australia. Not related.

[x]

There was a service in the New York area that was originally called WHT (Wometco Home Theater) on a regular broadcast channel (68, 67 or 60 depending on where you were) that was later called SelectTV. Possibly related. I could describe that if anyone cares.

[BlowMeUpTom]

I remember at night, when the adult movies would run, like it was a white flickering screen, you could kind of make out what was going on, and you could hear a little bit of audio, but there was like a constant wah, sound going real fast, I do remember even younger my grandparents had it first, it was called spotlight, (unless I'm mistaken) and that later became channel one, unless spotlight was a early movie channel on cable, I still have a tape my grandpa recorded off the channel, airplane and I the jury, and they touted both as New Releases, so this had to have been around 80 to 81, but I thought he got rid of it, because he didn't like channel one, then in about 1986, was when it switched to SelectTv, every month they would send a magazine, a real detailed one, with the months programing, and a pretty detailed description on every single movie that they were showing that month! as an adult I'm just thinking how nice that would be!

[listener1]

Being from the L.A. area, I remember in the late 70's through at least the early 80's was a movie channel called ON TV. They showed regular movies during the day, adult movies late at night, and some Dodger home games. It was also scrambled although people could find home-made ways of de-scrambling the signal.

[admin]

I remember ON TV they were broadcast on KBSC 52 from Corona they were later bought by SelecTV which was on KWHY 22, they killed On and moved everyone to channel 22, we had it before we got cable, now both of these services only broadcasted at night as KBSC was spanish during the day and KWHY is and has always been "The Business Channel" during the day

[tvdude]

admin said:

now both of these services only broadcasted at night as KBSC was spanish during the day and KWHY is and has always been "The Business Channel" during the day

KWHY is now and has been for about 10 years 24 hours spanish language. They are owned by NBC Universal via a by out about 5 years ago when KVEA Telemundo bought KWHY, then NBC bought all Telemundo holdings about 3 years ago

[listener1]

SLC/URN, you are right. Thanks for jogging my memory. Yes, it was Spanish and regular programming during the day and movies at night on Channel 52. It knew it was channel 50 something.