The Canadian Pay TV Wars

[samurainoir]

http://www.blogto.com/city/2013/02/looking_back_at_the_pay_tv_wars_in_toronto/

[cjefferys]

Interesting article, I missed out on the Canadian Pay TV wars, my parents decided that we would be conscientious objectors in that war and instead got a big satellite dish in the early 80's. That meant HBO, Showtime, MTV, etc instead of the lame Canadian substitutes. Oh and the Playboy Channel and American Exxxtasy too (psst, don't tell my dad!)

[palitoy]

I remember marching over in the snow to my grandparents apartment to see the premiere of Star Wars on Super Channel. The host segments in between the movies were nails on chalkboard bad.

[samurainoir]

Seeing Star Wars on Pay TV was pretty huge for me, but seeing Heavy Metal was mind-blowing.

I likely watched a VHS copy of Star Wars taped off of Pay TV for the next decade, before I got to see a theatrical print again, and then the LD widescreen in the early 90's. Really brought home how much of the movie I was missing when watching the regular TV pan and scan ratio.

[ubermanx]

Wasn't Inspector Gadget a First Choice exclusive for a bit? Maybe the first year? Seem to remember seeing that and a "fish head, fish head ..." music video at my Uncle's.

No way my Dad was gonna "pay" for TV.

- Marty

[Fitski]

I remember marching over in the snow to my grandparents apartment to see the premiere of Star Wars on Super Channel. The host segments in between the movies were nails on chalkboard bad.

Me and my bros did the same thing! My grandma had cable

[cjefferys]

I remember getting a VHS dub of Star Wars for my birthday in 1982, I watched the hell out of that thing. And somehow my dad found a guy who was selling copies of Jedi when it was still in the theatres in 1983, god knows where those originated from! I didn't get a copy until Christmas that year, but it was still very exciting having a copy so early! It looked and sounded terrible, must have been a 15th generation copy or something, but at least it was letterboxed (back before I knew what that even meant!)