102-508: ONTV or variant may refer to: ON TV (TV network) , now-defunct American UHF subscription television service ONTV Nigeria , a Lagos-based channel On E , formerly known as ON TV, an Egyptian digital television channel launched in 2009 CHCH-DT , a station in Canada that used the branding "ONtv" during the 1990s "On TV", a song by the Buggles from
204-576: A UHF television station and leased decoders to subscribing customers. At its peak in 1982, ON TV boasted more than 700,000 customers—more than half of them in Los Angeles , its most successful market. However, the rapidly expanding availability of cable television, coupled with a recession, caused the business to quickly lose subscribers at the same time that Oak Industries was experiencing severe financial difficulties. Between March 1983 and June 1985, all eight operations closed. In 1973, Oak Industries ,
306-489: A KVEA reporter who at one time covered the political beat. The station suspended her for two months without pay for failing to disclose the conflict for interest and reassigned her to KVEA's bureau in Riverside . She failed to report to work there and left the company. Cuts led to the removal of the morning newscast before it was reinstated in 2011 alongside the launch of a new weekly public affairs program. Beginning in 2014,
408-478: A Los Angeles institution at channel 34, resigned from his position at that station and joined KVEA in 2003, citing the attention NBC was giving the news department and its then-airing of six hours a day of local news, doubling KMEX's output. By 2007, Quezada had resigned to become the vice president of news and public relations for Una Vez Más Holdings. In 2007, Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa admitted that he had an extramarital affair with Mirthala Salinas,
510-514: A bias toward Mexicans and ousted her for being Central American. Meanwhile, employees sought to unionize KVEA; they voted to form a union, but management refused voluntary recognition. With another boycott threatened, KVEA recognized the union in November 1997, right before the start of a ratings survey. On January 15, 2001, KVEA launched an expanded news department, doubling its budget and its weekday output, as well as adding weekend news programs for
612-523: A deal with Zenith to produce its equipment, the company pulled out of the deal in October when major movie studios protested the potential for a monopoly on pay-TV programming between Time's STV holdings and Home Box Office cable network. ) The Dallas–Fort Worth market entered the picture when Oak reaffirmed a 1976 deal with Channel 21, Inc., the Sidney Shlenker and Milton Grant –led consortium that held
714-525: A form of parental control. When ON TV entered into a partnership to start SportsVision , a second STV service, in Chicago, Oak manufactured special two-channel decoders that supported both services. The last two new Oak STV installations—Dallas–Fort Worth and Portland—utilized a newer and more secure version of the Sigma scrambling system. A problem that would be a constant for all subscription television operators
816-697: A former KNBC news anchor who had been with the station since the 1985 launch, left in early 1989, three ranking Mexican staffers resigned together that June. The dispute escalated into calls by the National Hispanic Media Coalition for an advertising boycott of the station and picketing of its studios by protesters who felt the station favored Cubans in hiring and programming. KVEA's next bout of station turmoil came in 1997. Between February and August, seven longtime staffers were dismissed for supposed budgetary reasons, though one anchor, Ana Cecilia Granados, alleged that new manager José Ronstadt had
918-522: A full news service, and the station produced 11 and a half hours of local news a week by 1987. To daily 6 and 11 p.m. news programs, KVEA added morning and midday newscasts when the news department expanded in January 2001, doubling its budget. In October 2001, a 5 am newscast also debuted. In 2002, KVEA notched its first win at 11 p.m. since November 1993. Eduardo Quezada, who had worked for KMEX for 28 years and had previously been described as
1020-478: A group that relaunched it as Spanish-language KVEA and was instrumental in the foundation of Telemundo. On November 14, 1962, the Federal Communications Commission granted Kaiser Broadcasting , a division of Kaiser Industries , a construction permit for a new channel 52 television station to be licensed to Corona. The station, named KICB before construction, signed on as KMTW from studios and
1122-461: A maker of cable television equipment and other electronic components, and Chartwell Communications, a company majority-owned by Jerry Perenchio and Norman Lear , founded a joint venture initially known as World Pay Television, Inc. to create and operate a subscription television system in the Los Angeles market. The connection was made when Everitt A. Carter, an executive at Oak Industries, attended
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#17328757527441224-652: A monopoly on decoding its signals. Two months later, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a new law prohibiting the sale of unauthorized STV decoding equipment. For Oak, piracy became a serious threat—and one not easily remediated, given the extensive install base of decoders and the inability to pinpoint where pirate decoders were located. Further, in Los Angeles, ON TV had begun turning on disconnected decoders regularly to restore service to subscribers affected by power failures in neighborhoods. Affecting all STV operations—but most severely impacting Chartwell in Detroit—was
1326-496: A new generation of addressable decoders in 1982. It would not be enough. When ON TV closed in Detroit on March 31, 1983, Chartwell shuttered a business in which it had invested $ 13 million but never turned a profit. The system—which was vigorously competing against it , the subscription service on Ann Arbor -based WIHT , and Livonia -based MDS service MORE-TV, in addition to rapidly proliferating cable services—had lost 26,000 of
1428-753: A new generation of decoder boxes. In 1984, ON TV Chicago, also afflicted by heavy pirating, offered "amnesty" to pirate users ahead of the launch of new scrambling equipment. ON TV was broadcast over the air on eight stations in the United States: The first ON TV service launched in the Los Angeles market on April 1, 1977, on KBSC-TV (channel 52), licensed to Corona ; ON TV's offices were in Glendale . Channel 52 shuffled its ethnic programming lineup in favor of carrying ON TV during evening hours beginning at 8:00 pm. (KBSC-TV changed its commercial program format to Spanish-language shows in 1980. ) By April 1979,
1530-519: A new headquarters building in the planned community of Rancho Bernardo . As very large cities, like Philadelphia, saw years-long delays in cable television wiring due to political disputes over franchises, the specter of services like ON TV loomed over the horizon and served as an impetus to consider more rapid action. Chartwell, too, began the task of developing markets. As early as 1977, NST had an agreement to run an STV service on WXON in Detroit , and
1632-401: A second station. Our success does not have to come at the expense of Channel 34. Paul Niedermayer, first general manager of KVEA SelecTV programming aired for a time on KBSC while the new owners readied the station's next chapter. On November 24, 1985, KVEA debuted. The new Spanish-language station sought to be an alternative to KMEX , the dominant outlet in southern California, with
1734-414: A series of local news expansions at Telemundo have added hours of news to KVEA's output. A 5:30 p.m. show debuted at KVEA and 13 other Telemundo stations in 2014. In 2016, a 5 p.m. half-hour was introduced. The station's signal is multiplexed : KVEA shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 52, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television ;
1836-584: A service with more program hours—and was the nation's most crowded. Anthony Cassara, president of the television division of VEU owner Golden West Broadcasters, had previously described that market as "total insanity" when it had three competing operators. Expanded hours were crucial to keeping services alive as cable companies grew: in June 1983, Cincinnati's WBTI axed hours of free programming and began taking satellite-fed ON TV programming from Oak in place of its local feed. In August, Willamette Subscription Television,
1938-542: A shared newsroom. Despite being an integrated operation, unlike at KNBC, KVEA's anchors and reporters remained non-union until voting 18–1 to unionize with SAG-AFTRA in January 2023. Local news programming on channel 52 began with the KVEA relaunch, in the form of a 15-minute program called VEA Noticias . One of the station's early coups was its coverage of the 1986 San Salvador earthquake , which drew new news viewers and started competition with KMEX. This quickly expanded into
2040-473: A subscription service to broadcast at least 20 hours a week of unencrypted programming, KBSC began running ON TV 24 hours a day and displaced its existing Spanish-language daytime programming. However, the STV industry took a national nosedive moving into 1983. A national recession and the increased penetration of multichannel cable television created new and immediate financial headwinds for Oak and ON TV. In March 1984,
2142-560: A subscription television station had left a legacy that impeded Oak's ability to sell its stake in channel 44 for years. In 1982, Monroe Communications Corporation filed a challenge to WSNS's license renewal and a competing application to establish a channel 44 TV station in Chicago, charging that, as an STV station between 1979 and 1982, WSNS failed to serve the public interest and severely cut back on public affairs programming. An FCC administrative law judge found against WSNS licensee Video 44 and in favor of Monroe in 1985. The FCC later granted
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#17328757527442244-640: A success in its early years of operation, and nowhere was this more apparent than in Southern California, despite the arrival of SelecTV on KWHY-TV (channel 22) the next year. By April 1979, the service was signing up 12,000 subscribers a month. By that year, it had grown its sports portfolio beyond the Dodgers, Angels, Lakers, and Kings to include USC Trojans college sports and Los Angeles Aztecs soccer, as well as horse racing from Santa Anita Park . The STV venture transformed Oak Industries itself. In 1979,
2346-486: A tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs in Houston , organized by Perenchio; Perenchio approached Carter and asked if the company could build a system to scramble over-the-air signals for pay distribution. While Oak was initially resistant to the idea, it ultimately agreed to develop the equipment if Perenchio fronted $ 200,000 for research and development, which he did. In 1976, Oak president Frank A. Astrologes
2448-415: A transmitter on Mount Wilson on June 29, 1966. Kaiser had developed a chain of independent television stations in large cities that generally lacked independent stations at the outset. The Kaiser independents in such cities as Detroit ( WKBD-TV ), Philadelphia ( WKBS-TV ), and Cleveland ( WKBF-TV ), for instance, were typically the first or second such non-network outlets in operation. Los Angeles presented
2550-615: A very different market with three network stations, four VHF independents already operating, and (with KMTW activated) four UHF stations. Kaiser knew it would need a different approach. Before signing on, it took an option on the Phonevision subscription television system developed by Zenith Electronics and licensed by Teco, gaining the right to use it in the Los Angeles market. However, Phonevision's ability to be used nationally and legal cases over subscription television in California had left
2652-622: A victory when its direct competitor, Spectrum , opted to discontinue operating in Chicago and sell its subscriber base. However, Oak's condition continued to deteriorate. Later that month, the company announced it was being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and it posted a loss of $ 166.1 million for 1983. One of the company's auditors, Arthur Andersen , qualified its statement, fearing that Oak could not fully realize its $ 134 million investment in subscription television. As pressure increased on Oak's finances and
2754-455: A week of unencrypted programming, KBSC began running ON TV 24 hours a day and displaced its existing Spanish-language daytime programming. However, as Oak dismantled its former STV empire, it quickly sold the ON TV subscriber base, by then dwindling, and KBSC-TV to separate parties weeks apart. SelecTV continued to broadcast over KBSC-TV for several more months until the new, Spanish-language KVEA
2856-610: A wider range of U.S. and Latin American shows than KMEX's mostly Mexican fare and children's programming, as well as local news and a newsmagazine program. The creation of a second Spanish-language network had first been mooted in 1984. NetSpan's founding affiliates were WNJU in New York, ethnic independent KSCI channel 18 for the Los Angeles market, and Chicago's WBBS-TV . By 1986, KVEA had replaced KSCI (and WCIU-TV had entered in Chicago);
2958-424: A year; an inability to obtain more airtime from WXON; and competition from the it service that aired on Ann Arbor -based WIHT . The operating hours that WXON allowed ON TV to have in the Detroit market continually hampered the service's ability to show sporting events, directly causing it to drop a package of Detroit Tigers baseball games it aired. Oak was next to announce casualties. On April 15, 1983, citing
3060-532: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages ON TV (TV network) ON TV was an American subscription television (STV) service that operated in eight markets between 1977 and 1985. Originally established by National Subscription Television, a joint venture of Oak Industries and Chartwell Communications, ON TV was part of a new breed of STV operations that broadcast premium programming—including movies, sporting events, and concerts—over an encrypted signal on
3162-644: The Calgary Flames on October 29, 1981; the Red Wings had scored five goals in the first period before ON TV picked up the game. WXON then sued ON TV to get out of what Chartwell claimed was a "fifty-year contract" with the station. After the 1982 season, ON TV dropped its Tigers deal because it could not secure the air time it needed to telecast games in their entirety. In a bid to stem the piracy problem that had dogged it for nearly its entire existence, Chartwell began upgrading from its original Blonder-Tongue units to
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3264-657: The Los Angeles area outlet for the Spanish-language network Telemundo . It is owned and operated by NBCUniversal 's Telemundo Station Group alongside KNBC (channel 4). The two stations share studios at the Brokaw News Center in the northwest corner of the Universal Studios Hollywood lot off Lankershim Boulevard in Universal City ; KVEA's transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson . Channel 52
3366-550: The Los Angeles Dodgers hosted by longtime Dodger Spanish-language voice Jaime Jarrín ; furthermore, KVEA was the production base for new Spanish-language shows screened nationally, including La piñata de los $ 25,000 ( The $ 25,000 Piñata ), the first nationally syndicated Spanish-language game show. At the end of the 1980s, KVEA came under some criticism for lack of representation of Mexicans—who comprised 90 percent of channel 52's viewership—in management. After Frank Cruz,
3468-615: The San Fernando Valley , as part of a soft launch of the new system. It was the second subscription television system in operation, with Wometco Home Theater having launched in New York City the previous month. Ambitions to expand ON TV beyond Los Angeles were immediate. When the first system went live, Carter claimed "firm contracts" to move forward in eight cities—five of which would eventually be home to ON TV-branded subscription television operations—but stated he wanted to see if
3570-646: The 1981 album Adventures in Modern Recording ...on TV or ...on Television , British TV programme See also [ edit ] TVOntario Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title ONTV . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ONTV&oldid=1151902635 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
3672-654: The 68,000 subscribers it claimed at its peak. In Phoenix, ON TV launched on a new UHF television station, KNXV-TV (channel 15), which signed on September 9, 1979, and immediately began carrying subscription television programming. The company immediately secured top-tier sports: in Phoenix, ON TV held telecast rights at various times to ASU sports, the Phoenix Suns , Phoenix Giants minor league baseball, and Los Angeles Kings hockey. By July 1982, it had 39,000 subscribers in Phoenix, but signs of trouble were emerging. In 1981,
3774-507: The FCC revised its media ownership rules to allow ownership of three stations in the largest markets. NBC would sell off KWHY in 2011 to the Meruelo Group as a condition of its merger with Comcast . In 2007, NBC announced that it would move its Los Angeles local operation to a site at Universal Studios Hollywood . The complex was completed in 2014, with separate studios for KNBC and KVEA and
3876-451: The Los Angeles operation, by then with just 156,000 subscribers, in February 1985. The same month that Oak sold the ON TV subscriber base to SelecTV, the company reached a deal to sell KBSC-TV itself to an investor group, Estrella Communications, headed by former Brazilian television network head Joe Wallach , in a $ 30 million transaction. Financially, the market is more than ripe for
3978-423: The Los Angeles system was a success first. In January 1978, Oak reached a deal with Sears to market ON TV service in the Los Angeles and Orange County area. The next year, ON TV got a competitor: SelecTV , which pioneered a pay-per-program model and only showed movies. In October 1978, Oak and Chartwell, the partners in the Los Angeles system, reached an agreement to each develop six ON TV markets on their own;
4080-470: The Miami market in 1984 to John Blair & Co., which planned Spanish-language programming. Oak intended to get out of Los Angeles next. In August—after a year of speculation—it emerged that Oak was in talks to sell the Los Angeles system to SelecTV, which had competed alongside ON TV for six years in the Southern California market. A deal was initially reached, then collapsed. However, SelecTV ultimately acquired
4182-535: The Miami–Fort Lauderdale market commenced subscription television broadcasts on January 11, 1980. The first licensed ON TV system, owned by Home Entertainment Network—a division of Buford Television—went live on that company's WBTI-TV in Cincinnati on February 1; the station itself took to the air on January 28. Oak went on air with ON TV in Chicago on September 22, after having bought a 49 percent stake in
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4284-425: The ON TV systems continued to lose subscribers during 1984, cuts were made. In mid-July, National Subscription Television of Fort Lauderdale laid off 41 employees—half its staff. Less than two weeks later, Oak announced that it had sold WKID-TV to John Blair & Co. for $ 17.75 million; the new buyers intended to program it as a Spanish-language station. In August—after a year of speculation—it emerged that Oak
4386-579: The Oak expansion cities firmed up considerably in November 1978 when Oak announced it would begin operating in Phoenix in July 1979 in a joint venture with the New Television Corporation, which held the construction permit for KNXV-TV (channel 15); New Television would program the station during the day as a free independent, while ON TV would air in the evenings. Oak announced at that time that it would be on
4488-530: The Oak markets would be Chicago, Phoenix, Miami, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and Dallas–Fort Worth, while Chartwell was tasked with development in New York, Detroit, Atlanta, San Francisco, Cleveland, and Houston. In Philadelphia, NST had reached a deal with Radio Broadcasting Corporation, which in 1977 was awarded a construction permit for a channel 57 TV station there. The next year, the company announced it would license its equipment and technology in cities where it did not intend to operate itself. The first of
4590-530: The Portland licensee and also the operator of a microwave system transmitting HBO to customers, filed for bankruptcy; it owed $ 4.7 million to a group of 20 major creditors, including $ 1 million to Oak. By this time, however, it had ceased receiving programming from Oak. KECH, which itself filed for bankruptcy in November 1983, ceased ON TV broadcasts on August 19, 1984. As Oak Industries faced wider financial trouble, it sought to reduce its involvement in
4692-582: The STV franchisee for KECH in the Portland, Oregon , market. By May 1982, ON TV in southern California had 400,000 subscribers. Oak boasted some 600,000 subscribers in its five ON TV markets, not counting Detroit, Cincinnati, or Portland. Additionally, Oak planned to start a ninth system in Houston in 1983, broadcasting over KTXH (channel 20), the under-construction sister station to KTXA. However, by November, as KTXH itself neared air, it had become clear that Oak
4794-420: The STV operator. This led to several fights between station owners and franchisees, Oak-owned or otherwise. As early as 1980, WXON in Detroit was objecting to ON TV's airing of the movie Is There Sex After Death? . KNXV-TV in Phoenix had threatened to stop airing ON TV's "adults only" late-night fare, and ON TV took the station to court over its refusal to cede early evening hours, which generated 60 percent of
4896-530: The Suns signed a 13-year agreement to telecast games through American Cable (resulting in the launch of the Arizona Sports Programming Network ), which sub-licensed games to ON TV in part because they had not wired all of the metropolitan area. Late in 1982, KNXV resisted a request to expand ON TV to start before 7:00 p.m. on weekdays and 5:00 p.m. on weekends, while the station also wanted
4998-650: The Telstar joint venture. Oak chairman Everitt Carter, under a cloud of uncertainty, abruptly left the position in December 1984. SelecTV ultimately acquired the Los Angeles operation, by then with just 156,000 subscribers, in February 1985. That same month, Oak reached a deal to sell KBSC-TV to an investor group, Estrella Communications, headed by Joe Wallach , in a $ 30 million transaction. That station formally relaunched as Spanish-language KVEA in November. On June 1, 1985, WBTI—which had been sold and relaunched as WIII at
5100-543: The air in Philadelphia and Miami by 1980. Meanwhile, the ON TV system in Los Angeles grew to more than 100,000 subscribers by the end of 1978 and 200,000 by August 1979, earning it the title of the world's largest single pay-TV operation. Oak's increasing involvement with the entertainment business spurred the entire company, previously headquartered in Crystal Lake, Illinois , to move to southern California, where it built
5202-606: The appointment and claimed that Chartwell and Perenchio had "surreptitiously" placed Siegel on the payroll; it was reported that Oak had no dispute with Siegel but wanted to affirm its authority as 51 percent owner of the venture. Oak chairman Carter was surprised to learn that Siegel made more money than he did. Further, Perenchio drew Oak's ire when the Chartwell ON TV operation in Detroit ordered new decoder boxes from one of Oak's competitors. Oak and Chartwell settled in September;
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#17328757527445304-620: The case of the Wolverines, it even ran one experimental 1979 telecast live, a presentation spearheaded by Michigan athletic director Don Canham with the blessing of the NCAA . WXON, however, proved to be a poor partner for ON TV. After airing the R-rated movie Is There Sex After Death? (which contained considerable sex and nudity) on March 12, 1980, the station then ordered ON TV to screen all movies it aired for WXON executives. More critically, however,
5406-518: The company announced that it was being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and it posted a loss of $ 166.1 million for 1983. One of the company's auditors, Arthur Andersen , qualified its statement, fearing that Oak could not fully realize its $ 134 million investment in subscription television. After having shuttered two ON TV operations in markets with combative station owners and high cable penetration— Dallas–Fort Worth and Phoenix —Oak moved to sell its station in
5508-633: The company moved its headquarters from Crystal Lake, Illinois , to the new planned community of Rancho Bernardo, California , to be closer to the entertainment industry. Meanwhile, KBSC-TV changed its commercial program format to Spanish-language shows in 1980, airing 74 hours a week of commercial shows in Spanish and giving the market a second choice for Spanish-language viewing. Most of its Spanish-language shows, including news from Mexico, were sourced from Mexico's Canal 13 . ON TV grew nationally, with Oak and Chartwell developing operations separately, though
5610-403: The company remained "bullish about STV"; it struck a deal with Telstar to sublease two satellite transponders, opening the door to satellite delivery of ON TV's programming to local STV and MDS franchisees, low-power television stations, and cable companies. Another problem faced by subscription outlets was that they leased time from television stations, which in some cases were not owned by
5712-556: The company stationed process servers outside of the Windsor offices of one decoder manufacturer, Video Gallery, to dissuade potential U.S. buyers. Chartwell then took Video Gallery and its American clients to U.S. federal court, seeking an injunction, and got it, preventing Americans from importing its products. In response, Video Gallery obtained an injunction in an Ontario court preventing ON TV representatives from interfering with customers entering its store. However, Chartwell would gain
5814-744: The construction permit for Fort Worth television station KTXA , to bring ON TV to the Metroplex. Oak also filed for construction permits in various cities around the United States, including channel 38 in St. Petersburg, Florida ; channel 38 in New Orleans ; and channel 20 in Denver . Those applications were joined by a 1981 filing for channel 16 at Everett, Washington , near Seattle . The Phoenix operation began September 9 when KNXV-TV began broadcasting, and WKID-TV in
5916-516: The cottage industry that sprang up in Windsor, Ontario , Canada, across the Detroit River . The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission 's then-ongoing study of pay television services prompted the company to halt any plans to start its own business operations there; when asked about the possibility of ON TV being legal in Canada, communications minister David MacDonald replied that
6018-460: The end of the year from Fort Lauderdale -based WKID-TV , which it had purchased. In Chicago, it reached an agreement with Video 44, owner of UHF station WSNS-TV , to use Oak equipment and technology in its service. (While Video 44 then attempted to sell 50 percent of the company to American Television and Communications, a subsidiary of Time, Inc. and owner of the Preview STV services which had
6120-404: The first time. The network then purchased KWHY-TV channel 22, its former pay TV competitor and later a Spanish-language independent, for $ 239 million in June 2001, creating a duopoly. Work was already underway on a comprehensive overhaul of channel 52's studios, and channel 22 was then integrated into the operation. In October 2001, NBC announced it would buy Telemundo. The combination of
6222-486: The idea "would appear to fly in the face of every statement that's ever been made about Canadian broadcasting". It was legal, however, for Windsor residents to build decoders to receive ON TV—and some 10,000 existed within two years of beginning STV operation in Detroit—but when those decoders started to enter the United States and pose a challenge to Chartwell's operation, the company moved to take action. In late May 1981,
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#17328757527446324-487: The intention of using it to bring ON TV to south Florida. ON TV then began operating on January 11, 1980, broadcasting subscription programming from 7:00 p.m. to midnight on weekdays and 5:00 p.m. to midnight on weekends. Operating in a market with few professional sporting franchises, one of the immediate draws was a package of games of the Fort Lauderdale Strikers . 5,200 subscribers were signed up in
6426-822: The licensee of WSNS, and in Dallas–Fort Worth on February 28, 1981. Just eight months after going live in Chicago, ON TV was profitable in that market—said to be unprecedented in the STV industry—and by October 1981, it was joined by all of the Oak-owned operations except Dallas–Fort Worth. Still more stations appeared to be in the pipeline: Oak had a deal with Baltimore's WBFF to enter that market, and it owned 45 percent of an STV franchise for channel 29 at Minneapolis. Meanwhile, Chartwell—after having attempted to nab rights to New York Yankees baseball—dropped its New York subscription television plans, opting not to scrap WNJU-TV's successful Spanish-language programming and battle
6528-475: The licenses for five of its stations to a partnership with Field Communications , of which it would own 77.5 percent. KBSC-TV was held out of the joint venture because it was scheduled to be sold. Two months later, Kaiser announced it would seek to sell the station to the Pay Television Corporation in a transaction filed with the FCC in February 1973. The largest owner of Pay Television Corporation
6630-426: The liquidation of its parent company, Kaiser Industries . After changing its name to National Subscription Television (NST), the service launched under the brand name ON TV on April 1, 1977, offering unedited, uninterrupted motion pictures, as well as limited slates of Los Angeles Dodgers , California Angels , Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Kings games, during evening hours. The first 500 subscribers lived in
6732-497: The market's dominant STV provider, Wometco Home Theater. (Perenchio would ultimately sell WNJU-TV in 1986. ) In Los Angeles—the largest ON TV market, where Oak and Chartwell remained partners—the arrangement came into doubt in March 1981. The two sides disagreed over Perenchio's appointment of William M. Siegel, the chief executive of Chartwell, as the general manager of National Subscription Television—Los Angeles. Oak refused to consent to
6834-415: The market, in the first three ON TV launches (Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Detroit). ON TV programming consisted of four basic components: movies, sporting events, special events such as concerts and boxing matches, and adult programming. Though there was variance between ON TV operations—particularly with regard to sports programming in each market—after 1983, when it established the Telstar joint venture, Oak
6936-737: The network offered three hours a day of programming plus specials. Estrella Communications was a subsidiary of Reliance Capital Group , led by corporate raider Saul Steinberg . Less than a year after starting up KVEA, Reliance acquired John Blair & Co., which agreed to be purchased for $ 300 million to avoid a hostile takeover. The deal united KVEA with WSCV —the Miami-area station Oak had sold off two years prior—and WKAQ-TV in San Juan, Puerto Rico . In October 1986, Reliance then bought WNJU. On January 12, 1987, NetSpan became Telemundo, supplying additional programming and national news, which helped
7038-581: The next year, set the course for channel 52 to become the first station in their planned subscription television venture, as Oak moved the studios from Metromedia Square to a site on Grand Central Avenue in Glendale . On April 1, 1977, 500 test subscribers in the San Fernando Valley became the first customers of ON TV , a subscription service broadcast over KBSC-TV that offered unedited, uninterrupted motion pictures, as well as limited slates of Los Angeles Dodgers , California Angels , Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Kings games, during evening hours. It
7140-476: The next year. A worsening recession and faster-than-anticipated growth of cable television became hazards. As ON TV operations in some markets began to face headwinds, the financial picture of Oak Industries itself worsened. In October 1982, it revised down its earnings guidance due to declining sales of its 56-channel cable box, due to the recession and technical issues. Even though one analyst described subscription television as "clearly just an interim business",
7242-429: The notable exception of Chartwell's operation in Detroit, which used equipment from rival Blonder-Tongue , ON TV systems, including all five owned by Oak itself, used scrambling technology and decoder hardware developed and manufactured by Oak, known as the "Model I". The boxes, connected to a standard UHF television antenna, decoded the encrypted STV signal for paying subscribers and output it to their sets. Each decoder
7344-607: The notable pay-per-view presentations provided by ON TV (and other STV systems) was the first television screening of Star Wars in 1982, for which subscribers paid an additional $ 7.95. However, the system could not provide alternate fare for subscribers who did not pay for the movie, so those customers simply received no STV programming—just a blank screen. While more than 30 percent of customers in Oak's ON TV territory paid for Star Wars , conversion rates had surpassed 60 percent in some cases for boxing matches. Adult programming had high uptake in STV operations nationwide, and ON TV
7446-513: The operation of its three remaining directly owned ON TV systems. In October 1983, operation of the Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami–Fort Lauderdale systems shifted from Oak to a new company, Twin Arts Productions, led by former Playgirl magazine publisher Ira Ritter; the three services counted 370,000 total subscribers, down from 550,000 in October 1982. In early 1984, Oak announced a revamped ON TV program lineup, and its operations did score
7548-402: The payroll; it was reported that Oak had no dispute with Siegel but wanted to affirm its authority as 51 percent owner of the venture. Oak chairman Carter was surprised to learn that Siegel made more money than he did. Further, Perenchio drew Oak's ire when the Chartwell ON TV operation in Detroit ordered new decoder boxes from one of Oak's competitors. Oak and Chartwell settled that September;
7650-613: The renewal, only for a federal appeals court to rule in Monroe's favor in April 1990. After the FCC officially denied the license renewal in September 1990, however, Chicago's Hispanic community and civic leaders rallied around WSNS. Video 44 and Monroe reached an $ 18 million settlement agreement in 1993, and Oak and fellow Video 44 partner Harriscope sold their stake in the station to Telemundo in 1995. Subscribers were charged $ 40 to $ 50 installation and $ 19.95 to $ 22.50 per month, depending on
7752-412: The service was signing up 12,000 subscribers a month. By that year, it had grown its sports portfolio beyond the Dodgers, Angels, Lakers, and Kings to include USC Trojans college sports and Los Angeles Aztecs soccer, as well as horse racing from Santa Anita Park . After the FCC repealed a rule in late 1982 that required television stations offering a subscription service to broadcast at least 20 hours
7854-423: The service's first two months, and it claimed 15,000 by July. In September 1981, ON TV added further hours, starting at 6:00 p.m. on weekdays. It expanded again in July 1982. By July 1984, when ON TV laid off half its staff, subscriptions had fallen from a 1982 high of 44,700 to 28,500, making it the smallest of Oak's STV operations at the time. At the time that John Blair & Co. acquired WKID-TV, it
7956-479: The situations in each market, it announced it would shutter its Dallas–Fort Worth and Phoenix systems. In Phoenix, the advance of cable and other factors had caused subscribers to drop from a peak of 39,000 in July 1982 to 25,000 at closure. Besides the Dallas–Fort Worth conflict with KTXA, the company had been handicapped by a late entry into a market that at the time had two existing STV competitors—VEU and Preview, which merged their local operations in late 1982 into
8058-477: The start of the year—dropped ON TV, with just 3,200 remaining subscribers, when Oak ceased providing programming by satellite. Oak had one last portion of its subscription television business to dismantle, in Chicago, where WSNS ceased broadcasting as a subscription station on June 30 and began broadcasting programming from the Spanish International Network the next day. However, WSNS's years as
8160-492: The station attract national advertisers. The investment in KVEA quickly paid off. By February 1987, the 15-month-old operation had achieved a 34 percent share of the Spanish-speaking audience in Los Angeles, with the market having grown large enough that KMEX did not lose any of its audience. It covered community events in Spanish, produced 11 and a half hours of local news a week, aired a weekly half-hour highlight show of
8262-500: The station refused to cede any time before 8:00 p.m. and aired reruns in that time slot, severely crippling it as a sports broadcaster. Midweek Red Wings and Tigers games regularly began before ON TV was on the air, forcing the station to join games in progress (as with the Red Wings) or tape delay them (which it did for the Tigers). This flaw became highly visible when the Red Wings played
8364-438: The subscription service to stop screening adult movies. Phoenix was one of the first markets to show serious subscriber erosion. By April 1983, its subscriber base had dipped below 25,000, a drop of more than 35 percent. Oak Communications ultimately shuttered ON TV in Phoenix on May 4, 1983, resulting in the loss of 140 jobs. In 1979, Oak bought Fort Lauderdale television station WKID (channel 51) for $ 4.1 million, with
8466-449: The suit was dropped, and Oak bought out Chartwell's 49 percent share of National Subscription Television for $ 55 million. By May 1982, ON TV in southern California had reached its zenith—400,000 subscribers, representing two-thirds of Oak's base of some 600,000 paying customers in its five ON TV markets, not counting Detroit, Cincinnati, or Portland. After the FCC repealed a rule in late 1982 that required television stations offering
8568-544: The suit was dropped, and Oak bought out Chartwell's 49 percent share of National Subscription Television for $ 55 million. Oak now controlled the entire Los Angeles and Miami systems, as well as majority shares in the Chicago, Dallas–Fort Worth and Phoenix markets, while Chartwell continued to own and operate the Detroit ON TV system. Cincinnati was licensed, to be joined by another licensing agreement Oak made starting January 31, 1982, with Willamette Subscription Television,
8670-560: The system unapproved by the time channel 52 started broadcasting. Instead, KMTW subsisted on public service films, travelogues, and other cheap fare. On February 20, 1968, KMTW became KBSC-TV, representing its ownership (Kaiser Broadcasting) and region (Southern California). The Phonevision agreement expired in 1970, and the FCC gave approval the next year for Kaiser to begin using studios at 5746 Sunset Boulevard— Metromedia Square , home to KTTV . The gulf between KBSC-TV and its sister stations grew wider. In August 1972, Kaiser transferred
8772-409: The television station's revenue. KTXA won a legal fight against ON TV in that market, taking away all its adult programming and prompting competitor VEU to run ads with headlines such as "For real adult entertainment, turn-on to VEU". The first ON TV service to close was Chartwell's Detroit system, which shuttered on March 31, 1983. It cited falling subscriber figures, from 68,000 to 42,000 in just
8874-700: The two parties aimed for a July 1, 1979, launch. In 1979, the company, through affiliate Tandem Productions, acquired New York City -area station WNJU-TV , and Tandem was waiting in the wings to buy Washington, D.C.'s WDCA-TV if the FCC had rescinded its approval of that station's sale to Taft Broadcasting . Chartwell also explored buying a station in Sacramento, California , in 1980, going so far as to enter into advanced negotiations to purchase that city's KMUV-TV . As 1979 continued, activity accelerated. Oak announced its intention to open subscription television in Miami at
8976-558: The two parties owned three stations in the market; the FCC conditioned approval of the Telemundo acquisition on the divestiture of KWHY. Integration of the two operations took a major step forward in 2003, when 250 Telemundo employees moved to KNBC's studios in Burbank. KWHY sales and programming functions remained in Glendale while NBC fought for a waiver to keep all three stations; the next year,
9078-416: The two remained partners in the Los Angeles operation. This arrangement, however, came into doubt in March 1981. The two sides disagreed over Perenchio's appointment of William M. Siegel, the chief executive of Chartwell, as the general manager of National Subscription Television—Los Angeles. Oak refused to consent to the appointment and claimed that Chartwell and Perenchio had "surreptitiously" placed Siegel on
9180-640: The upper hand. After winning its initial injunction, the government closed the border to Canadian decoders in August. Video Gallery closed at the end of the year, and Chartwell won a $ 618,000 judgment against it in March 1982. Even then, it was estimated that some 10,000 additional households received ON TV in southwestern Ontario, including on master antenna systems in apartment complexes—none of them making money for Chartwell. ON TV companies responded to piracy by modifying pulse signals and introducing new scrambling techniques. In Detroit, Chartwell began migrating to
9282-461: Was Jean Marieanne McDonald. The application remained pending at the FCC for nearly two years; ultimately, the company opted to franchise its technology and not be a station owner, resulting in the purchase being canceled in February 1975. In December 1975, Kaiser filed to sell KBSC-TV to Oak Broadcasting Systems, a joint venture of television equipment manufacturer Oak Industries and Jerry Perenchio . The $ 1.2 million transaction, which closed
9384-465: Was able to supply much of this programming directly to affiliates and home satellite dish owners. The ON TV decoder supported additional program tiers and pay-per-view events on top of the normal service, for which subscribers would have to pay additional money. This functionality was used to broadcast pay-per-view events including boxing matches—consistently the most successful PPV offering —as well as an "adults only" service of late-night movies. Among
9486-438: Was broadcasting from 4:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. and from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. on weekends. Blair completed the acquisition in December. Channel 51 then went off the air as Blair prepared to implement the station's relaunch as WSCV, south Florida's second Spanish-language television station. KVEA KVEA (channel 52) is a television station licensed to Corona, California , United States, serving as
9588-485: Was established as KMTW, an independent station owned by Kaiser Broadcasting , which became KBSC-TV in 1968. Kaiser explored several pay television systems to operate using the station, but none materialized until Oak Industries acquired the station and made it the first and most successful operation in ON TV , boasting as many as 400,000 subscribers at its zenith. As subscription television declined, Oak sold KBSC-TV in 1985 to
9690-487: Was in talks to sell the Los Angeles system to SelecTV, which had competed alongside ON TV for six years in the Southern California market. A deal was initially reached, then collapsed. That October, after a year, management of ON TV had been brought back in house after the Twin Arts arrangement was ended in order to cut costs; the company had also taken over its satellite distribution to some 140,000 subscribers after dissolving
9792-420: Was individually addressable, which meant they could be controlled centrally from the transmitter; addressability allowed for electronic connections and disconnections, as well as the ability to offer pay-per-view services, and allowed Oak to implement a theft deterrent where any disconnected decoder box stopped providing service after eight minutes. The decoders also supported an optional key module that served as
9894-510: Was named chairman of the new venture, with Carter succeeding him at Oak. The company intended to open franchises in 14 different states, per Federal Communications Commission (FCC) filings at the time. The system, which would use scrambling of a standard UHF television station, required a carrier. That was secured by the venture in 1976 when, under the name of Oak Broadcasting Systems, Oak and Perenchio purchased Los Angeles television station KBSC-TV (channel 52) for $ 1.2 million as part of
9996-410: Was no exception. In early 1983, 48 percent of subscribers across all ON TV systems paid an extra fee to subscribe to it. In Dallas–Fort Worth—despite being the last Oak market to offer the "Adults Only" tier —89 percent of subscribers opted in; it was 70 percent in Miami. Uptake ranged from 50 to 90 percent at other STV operations nationwide, including Wometco Home Theater and SelecTV Milwaukee. With
10098-600: Was not pursuing Houston plans, having essentially shuttered its part of the operation; Houston Chronicle television editor Ann Hodges cited the increasing wiring of the city for cable, the increased carriage of KTXH by cable systems without STV operation, and more expansive sports coverage planned in Houston than in Dallas–Fort Worth. Subscription television would prove to reach its zenith in 1982, however. That year, STV operations rapidly went from gaining subscribers to losing them. After seeing 65 percent growth in 1981, STV operators grew their subscriber rolls by just 0.8 percent
10200-435: Was ready to debut. In the only system Chartwell controlled outright, ON TV came to Detroit on July 1, 1979, broadcasting on WXON (channel 20); it had 15,000 subscribers within three months. The service quickly snared the rights to Detroit Red Wings hockey, Detroit Tigers baseball (consisting of 20 weeknight games a year from Tiger Stadium ), and Michigan Wolverines athletics (including tape-delayed football games). In
10302-561: Was signal piracy. As early as late 1978, the Los Angeles Times described the Oak ON TV decoder as one that "reportedly can be built at home by handy TV technicians". In 1980, a trio of lawsuits against manufacturers of pirate decoders converged. Oak won a case in Phoenix, as did Chartwell in Detroit. In a case involving pirate decoders in Los Angeles, however, a Los Angeles federal judge ruled against Oak and ruled that ON TV did not hold
10404-412: Was the second subscription television system in operation, with Wometco Home Theater having launched in New York City the previous month. Japanese- and Korean-language programs that were seen on channel 52 under leased-time arrangements migrated to a new station, KSCI (channel 18), when it launched on June 30; this allowed ON TV to air during evening hours beginning at 8 p.m. ON TV proved to be
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