British Satellite Broadcasting

British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) was a television company, based in London, that provided direct broadcast satellite television services to the United Kingdom. It started broadcasting on 25 March 1990. The company was merged with Sky Television plc on 2 November 1990 to form British Sky Broadcasting. Development In January 1977, the World Administrative Radio Conference assigned each country five high-powered direct broadcast by satellite channels for domestic use. In 1982, after being awarded two of the channels, the BBC proposed its own satellite service, but the government imposed two conditions on it: Use of a satellite built by United Satellite, a consortium of British Aerospace and Matra Marconi Space (now Airbus Defense and Space), with costs estimated at £24 million per year. A supplementary charter was agreed in May 1983 which allowed the BBC to borrow up to £225 million to cover the cost of the project, as it was not allowed to call on public funds, nor use existing sources of revenue to fund the project. During Autumn 1983, the cost of Unisat was found to be greatly underestimated and the new Home Secretary announced the three remaining channels would be given to the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) to allow the private sector to compete against the BBC in satellite broadcasting. Within a few months, the BBC started talking with the IBA about a joint project to help cover the cost. Subsequently, the government allowed the IBA to bring in private companies to help cover the costs (dubbed as the "Club of 21"): BBC – 50% ITV franchises – 30% Virgin/Thorn EMI/Granada TV Rental/Pearson Longman and Consolidated Satellite Broadcasting – 20% Within a year, the consortium made it clear that the original launch date of 1986 would be delayed to 1989, while also asking the government to allow it to tender out the building of the new satellite system to help reduce cost. On 15 June 1985, the project failed when consortium concluded that the cost of set-up was not justifiable. The BBC stated the costs were prohibitive because the government insisted that the "Club of 21" should pay for the costs of constructing and launching a dedicated satellite.