British Satellite Broadcasting British Satellite Broadcasting British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) was a television company, headquartered in London, that provided direct broadcast satellite television services to the United Kingdom. The company was merged with Sky Television plc on 2 November 1990 to form British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB). It started broadcasting on 25 March 1990. In 1977, the World Administrative Radio Conference assigned each country five high-powered channels for direct broadcast by satellite (DBS) for domestic use. In 1982, after being awarded two of the channels, the BBC proposed its own satellite service, with two conditions: During Autumn 1983, the cost of Unisat was found
Television in the United Kingdom between advertisements and programming. Advertisers purely purchased spots within pre-defined breaks within programming, and had no connection to the programme content. The content and nature of adverts being strictly controlled by the ITA the body controlling commercial television. The first commercial direct-broadcast satellite (DBS, also known as direct-to-home) service in the United Kingdom, Sky Television, was launched in 1989 and used the newly launched Astra satellite at 19.2° east, providing four analogue TV channels. The channels and subsequent VideoCrypt video encryption system used the existing PAL broadcast standard, unlike the winner of the UK state DBS licence, British Satellite Broadcasting