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ON-TV was a subscription television service, also known as National Subscription Television, launched in 1977 by Oak Industries, Norman Lear's Chartwell Enterprises and Jerry Perenchio. Oak was a manufacturer of satellite and pay-TV decoders and equipment. more...
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ON-TV operated in major markets such as Los Angeles and Chicago.
Origins
ON-TV was one of many "scrambled UHF" services in many major markets around the country in the era before multi-channel cable television became widely available. Others included SelecTV, Prism, Starcase, Spectrum, Preview, and SuperTV.
Programming
ON-TV (and other related channels) aired a mixture of movies, sports events, and concerts. For example, the Los Angeles area service aired many home games of the Los Angeles Dodgers, California Angels, Los Angeles Lakers, and Los Angeles Kings, as well as some of the day's biggest championship boxing matches.
Basic service fees
Basic service was $19 a month, plus an extra charge for a selection of softcore pornography marketed as "ON Plus." Oak developed plans of a second ON-TV channel, which never appeared.
There were two basic steps to access ON-TV programming:
Pay a monthly subscription fee to NSTV, the parent company of the service.;
Receive a converter box (a box with a knob that had two settings - OFF and ON) which decoded a picture sent to the TV. The picture was transmitted over-the-air on a UHF station.;
The technology was sometime called multipoint distribution system. Viewers without decoder boxes saw a scrambled, flickering picture and garbled or substituted audio. However, some older models of black and white television sets were able to receive a clear signal, due to a fluke with the older technology.
Since the signal went out over-the-air, it was a popular target for signal pirates. This was especially true in the Detroit market, where many Windsor, Ontario residents built homemade decoder boxes.
Stations transmitting ON-TV programs
Among the stations that transmitted ON-TV programs were KBSC Los Angeles (now Telemundo affiliate KVEA), WSNS Chicago (also a Telemundo station), KTXA Dallas/Fort Worth (later UPN, now independent again), WBTI Cincinnati (now MyNetworkTV station WSTR), WXON Detroit (now WMYD, also an MNTV affiliate), WKID Fort Lauderdale (now Telemundo affiliate WSCV), and KNXV Phoenix (now an ABC affiliate).
Chicago
ON-TV began broadcasting in Chicago in 1980, airing on WSNS-TV 44. The service went dark in 1983, largely due to the long-awaited entrance of cable television into Chicago. During ON-TV's three year tenure, and for several years thereafter, WSNS was involved in numerous lawsuits related to ON-TV's late night adult programming. ON-TV competed directly with the similar Spectrum pay tv service which was owned by United Cable.
Read more at Wikipedia.org
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