NBC Europe

 

Launched on 30 January 1987, replacing the 24-hour music channel Music Box, it was co-owned by all but one of the ITV companies at the time in the United Kingdom.^[1] Virgin Group had a majority stake in Music Box (60%) and would own 15% of the equity with the rest being split between ITV franchise holders including Granada, Yorkshire, LWT, Central, Anglia, Tyne Tees, Ulster, Grampian, Scottish, Border, HTV, TSW and TVS, while Thames and TV-am were the only two of the contractors not to participate.^[2] It competed with Sky Channel (forerunner of Sky One), which was the only other major pan-European satellite television network around at the time. Unlike Sky Channel, syndicated output was less American and more European. Much of its programming was sourced from ITV or the BBC as part of "Best of British", and it also featured ITN-produced news bulletins. It also broadcast syndicated non-British European programmes, including the Dutch sitcom Zeg 'ns Aaa (broadcast on the original station VARA, with English subtitles).

Super Channel fared poorly, due to United Kingdom-based programming seen as unsuitable for European audiences, such as drama being seen as "too violent" or "too realistic",^[3] as well as a dispute with the British actors' union who demanded additional fees for viewing by audiences which meant that it could no longer offer the 'Best of British to a European audience'.^[2]

Within a year, the ITV companies (now including only Granada, TVS, Yorkshire Television, and Anglia Television) sold the network to the Italian Marcucci family, owners of Videomusic, the first music channel in Italy, with a minority stake being held by Richard Branson's Virgin plc. The programming changed from British to pan-European, although it continued carrying ITN World News bulletins.^[4]

 

On 2 October 1993, the station which was in severe financial difficulties was taken over by the American company General Electric, then-parent of the NBC television network, and became NBC Super Channel.^[5] From 9 September 1996, the channel was renamed NBC Europe, but was from then on almost always referred to as simply "NBC" on the air, although the network (along with its sister station CNBC Europe launched on 11 March earlier that year) was transmitted from the GE building in Hammersmith. The transmission suite used cutting edge Pro-Bel COMPASS and MAPP automation at the time, and Profile video servers for all commercials and promotions, within programmes continued to be played from tape automatically.

Most of NBC's prime time programming was produced in Europe, but after 10.00pm (CET) on weekday evenings as the channel aired The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Later to hence its slogan "Where the Stars Come Out at Night". Most news programmes were broadcast on NBC Europe including Dateline, Time and Again and NBC Nightly News, which was aired live. The Today Show was also initially shown live in the afternoons, but was later broadcast the following morning instead, by which time it was more than half a day old. This meant that all the NBC News portions had to be replaced with European updates produced by ITN in London, also supplied the network with the main newscasts before and after the GE takeover. European weather forecasts was produced by the BBC at first, but was later taken over by NBC in the United States occasionally.

NBC Europe carried virtually no prime time entertainment programmes shown in the United States, because they were usually owned and distributed by other studios under the fin-syn rules (which did not apply in Europe). NBC would have had to buy the rights for each country in order to show which would have been too expensive. Even for shows that NBC Studios owned itself, it was generally more financially viable to sell the rights by country either to broadcast or cable and satellite channels than to air them on NBC Europe. The most notable exceptions to this rule were brief runs of Profiler and The Pretender, as well as short-lived American sitcoms Union Square and Mr. Rhodes. That is widely considered to be one of the main reasons why NBC Europe was ultimately not a success.

 

NBC Europe stopped broadcasting to most of Europe on 30 June 1998, when the Deutsche Fernsehnachrichten Agentur took it over and moved to Düsseldorf. Most of the satellite feeds became either National Geographic Channel or CNBC. NBC Europe continued to operate on Germany's cable television networks, fed by one digital satellite link from Eutelsat II-F1 (later Hot Bird 5). On 30 November, the first German programming started airing, assembled from content from GIGA and CNBC Europe, as well as other shows. In 2004, NBC Universal took over the DFA and consequently NBC Europe.

On 29 September 2005, NBC Europe was split into GIGA and later replaced by the new channel Das Vierte. The service continued broadcasting with its licence on cable, satellite, IPTV and digital cable. It broadcast a special version on cable television including CNBC Europe and GIGA (up until 31 March 2006). This was necessary to keep both the licence and the cable channel.

On 25 September 2012, The Walt Disney Company acquired Das Vierte and closed the service from 31 December 2013. On 17 January 2014, the network was replaced by Disney Channel Germany switching from pay television to free-to-air.

Due to limitations on the amount of entertainment shows on the network, NBC Europe (including GIGA) aired a number of original programming in tandem with American content that had not been aired in Europe beforehand. These include:

• List of European television stations
• Timeline of cable television in the United Kingdom
• Europa TV

• Superchannel Launch - Complete and in full
• Uphill Struggle for Pan-Europe Stations : Televising to a Continent article from International Herald Tribune; 16 March 1994
• Superchannel at TV Ark at archive.today (archived 24 December 2012)