Cable movie channels before HBO (1 Viewer)

[KPmusmag]

I don't know if anyone will be interested in this blast from the past, but in doing some cleaning I found some listings from the first movie channel my family ever subscribed to. These listings are from 1977. If HBO existed at that time, our local cable franchise wasn't offering it (I believe they started with HBO in 1980). Instead we had Televents Bestvision. They would show 5 or 6 movies a month, usually one movie would run over and over during the week, and then on the weekend it would alternate between last week's movie and next week's. It could very very tedious if it was a dog of a movie. Sometimes it was OK; I binged-watched (not a known term in 1977!) Logan's Run, That's Entertainment, Part 2, The Sting and a few others. I recall I was left home alone the weekend Annie Hall was on. I like the movie now, but at 14 it was slow death - over and over. Despite my disdain for Annie Hall, even at that age I loved classic movies and I would call the cable office and ask for classics. Finally, the exasperated lady on the other end said, "I don't think you're gonna get what you're looking for, honey." They would also show some really badly done animated features, like this terrible version of Oliver Twist. Again, stuck with it for close to a week, sheesh. I also recall that I had saved up money to buy the commercial VHS of The Sting, always one of my faves. I was pretty ticked off to discover that the quality on the cable channel was better than the expensive tape. I actually put Scotch tape over the non-erase hole and taped the cable version over it since there were no blank tapes you could buy at the time longer than 2 hours (without using low quality mode). Now, of course, with the click of a mouse we have so much available to us, but in 1977, even the limited offerings on Televents were pretty cool. Movies at home without commercials, wow!

 

[Bob Cashill]

Here in the NY area there was something called Wometco Home Theater--"WHT, the movie network!" ads for it said. I salivated over listings for years until we got HBO, sometime in 1979 I think.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

HBO actually started in 1972 but only in the Long Island area. The first movie they showed was "Sometimes a Great Notion."

 

[Dave B Ferris]

This one is fondly/lovingly remembered in Los Angeles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_Channel

 

[mayberry66guy]

Our cable system offered SPOTLIGHT, which ran in the early 1980s (80-84). It began by offering a few hours of movies nightly, before expanding to 24 hours on the weekends, and eventually 24 hours a day. When that station folded, our cable system picked up Showtime.

 

[Matt Hough]

When I first moved into an apartment in the late 1970s, my complex offered what is now The Movie Channel. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I kept the TV tuned to that channel all the time.