Galaxy (Michillies)

Galaxy was the first subscription television operator in the Michillies. It was founded in 1993 and made its services available on satellite on January 1, 1995.

History

In January 1992, timed with the wins of the two commercial television licenses (ITN and TVA), the Michillian government issued the first licenses for pay-TV operators. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the first license was given to Albert Hannington, who was the son of the former president of Alpha Television, Michael Hannington, who planned the creation of a second television channel in the Michillies in the 60s, built upon the resistance against the MBC. Eventually, the license was later given to a consortium led by Continental Cablevision, who at the time was assisting infrastructures in Lenapore's Lenapore Cable Vision (now Starhub TV). The new operator, known as Galaxy, was intended to launch in April 1993, but there were setbacks: Galaxy had to carry all four terrestrial television channels at the time (MBC, TV Two, ITN and TVA). ITN and TVA were backfiring Galaxy due to potential conflicts regarding local broadcast rights of international television series on terrestrial and satellite, and that a later justification, given in June, said that they weren't aware of the way paid television worked in more developed countries.

Order was given in October 1993 to oficially legalize cable and satellite television operations. The reason why they were considered illegal until then was because the Michillies had to wait for an increase in the country's economy. This, coupled by the influence of Sierranization in the Michillies as a whole, led to Galaxy being controlled by other Sierran companies. Initially Hughes Electronics planned to buy Galaxy and turn it into a digital satellite provider called DirecTV, drawing upon the success of its brand in the United States, who at the time planned an entrance in Eurectipherian markets through Nethold, but eventually the deal in the Michillies fell due to there being a lack of know-how, as the digital satellite standard in Eurectipheria was still in the process of creation.

In 1994, Galaxy was bought by Northulian company Norhtulis, and its Sierran partner became Continental Century. It signed lucrative deals with Columbia TriStar, Paramount and Universal (at the time, Universal and Paramount in the Michillies were represented by a local UIP licensee called CIC Michillies, who expanded from its former operation as a branch of CIC Video, in 1999 CIC Michillies was divided into Paramount Michillies and Universal Michillies). These would give Galaxy first-run screenings of their catalog on two of their channels - Entertainment Central and Movie Central. A second film channel, Classic Movie Central, was later announced. There would also be a new channel, Prime, emulating the format used by Sky One and the then-upcoming FOX Northulia, though, due to the fact that they didn't have 20th Century Fox's catalog, it would draw upon Michillies On Air funding for exclusive local content.

In September, a sports channel was announced, Sports Central. Then in October, some third-party television channels were announced: French-language channel TV5, Eurectisport, NBS World, NBS Prime, Cartoon Network/TNT, TCC, The Knowledge Channel, MTV, CNN International, TNA International, RBC International, CNBC and Television X. Due to setbacks in the technology, Galaxy was to launch as an analog service.

Last-minute additions were made in December: an in-house kids channel, Max, was to counter TCC (who at the time had a contract with Nickelodeon to screen its programs until a localized feed of the channel launched), Cable Concept's Super Music and Screen One, a game show channel named Challenge?, patterned after Sierran channel Game Show Network and third-party music channel Juice. The launch date was set for January 1, 1995.

In advance for knowing that Galaxy's launch on New Year's Day was to be a failure, Galaxy enacted its Christmas campaign in December 1994 for a maximum 1000 households. This meant that a tiny fraction of the population would get access to Galaxy and would commence subscriptions in January. Initially, few of the third-party channels (the ones that didn't have a Michillian feed) were made available, alongside the five terrestrial channels (MBC 2, then Artszone TV, had launched in 1994).

The service eventually launched on New Year's Day, and for many of the subscribers who arrived after the date, it was considered to be a "false start".