SelecTV

SelecTV was a Flarlandian satellite television operator, owned by Netcafe.

History

Netcafe's desire to enter into the television market (1994-1996)

In September 1994, the as-of-yet massively-unheard ISP Netcafe announced its interest in joining the pay-TV market, competing against FST and Satellite Broadcasters, as their intentions were to deliver services by satellite. The goal was to use data broadcasting to deliver interactive services alongside the lienar television and radio services using the then-new digital technology, that hadn't been implemented yet in Flarland.

Partnership with DirecTV and launch (1996-1998)

In January 1996, Netcafe found an international partner to develop the digital satellite technology, Hughes Electronics. They already owned DirecTV in the United States and began their international expansion in Latin Sierra and later Orience. In March, it was announced that SelecTV would be using adapted DirecTV branding and details of the digital service would be announced by June.

SelecTV's logo was adapted from the DirecTV "cyclone", adapted to represent the S in SelecTV.

By late May, the government approved three digital satellite operations, FST Digital, Sat Digital and SelecTV. SelecTV was going to have a notably low-cost offer, starting with a "six plus six" package consisting of six FBC channels (FBC News, FBC Arts, FBC Kids, FBC Music, FBC Comedy and FBC Knowledge) plus six cable channels (MTV, Cartoon Network/TNT, Channel A, Discovery Channel, Flarlandian Sports Television and CNN International). Joining the twelve channels were government-mandated terrestrial channels (FBC 1, FBC 2, FBC 3, IBC, Channel Ten, Channel 13, Channel 14 and Channel 15), thus totalling twenty channels.

SelecTV launched mere days after the two rivals, a factor which conditionated the launch even further. The lack of premium channels due to extant regulations began complicating things. By the time Satellite Broadcasters was announcing its bankruptcy, SelecTV's number of subscribers grew, so did the channel offer.

DirecTV leaves SelecTV (1998-1999)

In 1998, DirecTV sold its stake in SelecTV, as the closure of one of its competitors, Satellite Broadcasters, has made proof that foreign ownership of telecommunications wouldn't work. Another reason was that the equipment for the decoders was badly converted from NTSC to PAL, which resulted in lack of interest. As a consequence, Netcafe took full control of the operator.

SelecTV reportedly absorbed 60.000 of Satellite Broadcasters' 160.000 subscribers. Some of the former operator's channels, like Nickelodeon (who had entered the platform in 1996) had also started their runs on SelecTV. Most Satellite Broadcasters decoders were reused by the company as a temporary measure.

Netcafe goes 100% and the race for new content (1999-2003)

In March 1999, to compete against FST-Cable Flarland's Microsoft WebTV, SelecTV offered a similar service. Using unique software, the second generation of SelecTV decoders gave internet access to the subscriber, as long as it was already subscribed to Netcafe.

This new generation of decoder was also capable of making advantage of the red button services. The growth of such services is largely attributed to the start of digital terrestrial broadcasts, under the BEdigital brand name.

In 2002, SelecTV had 1.5 million subscribers, up from 800 thousand two years before. New decoders replacing the first gen ones were a driving force behind the increase.

Towards an ethnic provider (2003-2007)

Despite a rapid-fire success, SelecTV was starting to fail. Netcafe announced that it would reduce its stake from 50% to 10% while using the stake to continue providing basic interactive services using the Netcafe brand.