Swindon Cable

Infobox TV channel
name = Swindon Cable
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launch = 11 September 1973
closed date = June 2000
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owner = ComTel(1998-2000)
NTL (2000)
slogan = Swindon's Local Channel
country = United Kingdom
broadcast area = Swindon
headquarters = Victoria Road, Swindon (1973-84)
Hawksworth Ind Est, Swindon (1984-2000)
former names = Swindon Viewpoint
Swindon Cable
The Local Channel
Swindon's Local Channel
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web = [http://www.swindoncable.co.uk Swindon Cable]

Swindon Cable was the UK's first cable television channel. It closed permanently in 2000 after 27 years of putting out a mix mostly of parish pump news and television bingo on the Wiltshire industrial town's radio and television relay cable network.

"Swindon Viewpoint" and "Cinematel"

Local programming in Swindon began life as Swindon Viewpoint on the 11 September 1973 as an experiment in community cable television, or public access television. This experiment started with EMI finance on the Radio Rentals cable radio and television relay network. Local people could trainin using television production equipment. Many of the programmes were 'one-off' documentaries that interested the volunteers involved. The studios were in the basement of television rental shop on Swindon's Victoria Road.

The experiment ended in 1980 and Radio Rental Cable Television replaced it in November 1981 with the UK's first pay-per-view movie channel, "Cinematel", also shown on a sister operation in Kent. The signal were encoded and the service was available only to subscribers, who had 'set-top' boxes to decode the signal.

When it was not showing film, the channel showed local interest programming restarted headed by Sue Stevens, who had been involved with Swindon Viewpoint and the programming reverted to community news and 'one-off' documentaries about events in or around Swindon. The service also provided a local 'teletext' service, "Thorntel" which provided local information from bus and times to job vacancies as well as "Scene in Swindon", launched on 1 May 1984 was a news magazine programme and "Sport on Saturday".

"Swindon Cable", "The Local Channel" and Closure

In 1984 Radio Rentals Cable Television moved re-launched the channel as "Swindon Cable", which The Duke of Kent opened. "Focus on Swindon" returned again produced by Sue Stevens with presenter/reporter Trevor Cribb. The channel increased the programme's frequency from twice a week to three times a week. Thorn EMI then sold its stake in the channel to British Telecom, which pulled the plug on "Focus on Swindon" on February 4 1986. Bought-in content, such as "CBS" 's daytime soap "The Bold and The Beautiful" replaced the community programming.

Viewers marked their cards at home to win cash prizes as Paul Langcaster drew numbers at random in "Home Shop Tele Bingo" from a studio dressed with goods available from the Littlewoods catalogue shopping business's retail stores. This was not Littlewoods' only flirtation with television. With Granada TV it ran the Shop! TV channel launched in 1998 on the ONdigital digital terrestrial platform and closed in 2002 [ [http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/a6652/granada-and-littlewoods-axe-shop.html "Granada and Littlewoods axe Shop!, Digitalspy.com, 14 March, 2002] .Retrieved on 2007-07-21.] after Granada and digital broadcasting partner, Carlton Communications, pulled the plug on the platform. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1896732.stm/ "ITV Digital goes broke, BBC, March 27 2002.Retrieved on 2007-07-21.]

When the sponsorship deal ended the channel was again re-launched. In June 1989 under a new name, "The Local Channel". The old mix of community news and one-off documentaries returned on a much smaller scale. It had full-time staff and a team of volunteers. They produced a familiar mix of programming about local sports and local news and events. The teletext operation was re-vamped and became the forerunner of the Cable Vision Information Service.

After a Canadian company took the channel over, its studio was refitted and became the country's then-most modern community programming suite. It relaunched in 1994 as Swindon Cable's Local Channel aimed to give the town a local slant on current affairs and news of events in and around the town. Ashley Heath and Paul Langcaster presented 'news, views, entertainment and the Cable Christmas Show'. Local sports news and results formed an important part of the schedule.

The Swindon team in 1998 started producing a community news magazine programme for ComTel in Oxford "Channel 10 - Scene in Oxford". During Swindon Cable's last week, Langcaster and Heath showed excerpts from Swindon-made community television programming. They included "Cable Club" launched in 1981 and its "Music Box", ''Cinematel", "Encore" and "Cable Text" sections. NTL (later renamed Virgin Media) took over ComTel's franchises and announced a plan to introduce video-on-demand but that never materialised. NTL scrapped Swindon Cable in June 2000.

Cabled in the 21st Century

Swindon was the UK's broadband capital, with more than 50% of households having high-speed internet access, the BBC reported on August 2 2006. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5238522.stm/ "Swindon 'leads broadband Britain' ", BBC] . Retrieved on 2007-07-21] .] It quoted research group "Point Topic", whose report put the town's high broadband take-up down to its being relatively prosperous and well covered by BT's DSL network and cable.

External links

* [http://www.swindoncable.co.uk Swindon Cable - The Cable Connection] (Nostalgia site)

References