On 21 October 1981, SATV began test transmissions on the Orbital Test Satellite after the European Space Agency allowed the company to test the satellite for the use of commercial television, with an hour of light entertainment in English each every night. While at first the island of Malta was its official target, it had a wide pan-European footprint. However, the low-powered satellite forced it to broadcast to cable systems rather than directly to individual satellite dishes, which proved to be a losing proposition.