Pan-European

Sky Channel
Pan-European predecessor to the UK's British Sky Broadcasting. 

Possibly the most venerable satellite channel in Europe, the predecessor to Sky One was dire, cheap and practically unfunded - but blazed a trail in establishing satellite television and multiple channel viewing in the UK.  See also SuperChannel.

Compare and contrast the above pan-European style with Sky presentation from Christmas 1992 shortly after the change to the UK-only 'MultiChannels' subscription package below.  The end of the pan-continent failure, plus the merger with the only real UK rival, BSB, produces a suite of channels much more confident than the old service. 

...and again with modern-day Sky One presentation from 2001.  No longer bright, booming and brash, the channel may subsist on a diet of populist American programming still, but it now out performs Channel 5 in digital homes and is in direct competition with E4, the entertainment channel from the UK's domestic Channel Four terrestrial service.

WorldNet
Pan-European US propaganda and information station. 

Very brash presentation style in evidence from this CIA-sponsored channel.  Looking like CNN and benefiting from the money lavished upon it at a time when radio station Voice of America was struggling, the output mostly consisted of opinion pieces masquerading as news and the occasional US travelogue.

G@me Network
Pan-European computer games channel. 

Making the leap from free-to-air analogue on HotBird to free-to-air digital via Eurobird and therefore visible to the Sky digibox is this interesting low-budget channel.  Whilst the minority output - endless shots of PlayStation games in progress - may not exactly appeal to all, the presentation is surprisingly similar to the pan-continent approach of the old MTV Europe of the late 80s. 

Differing styles, a lack of announcers (language barriers), the cards giving times of programmes in various cities and zones - all remarkably familiar.  The extended runs of silent menus and idents between programmes (for cable providers to fit local advertising into) is also a reminder of why these pan-European channels never really took off.

Drawing on the huge black and white and early colour archives of Time Warner, mainly from MGM, this contemporary channel uses a fascinating "1930s-style" presentation, which is very difficult to describe. 

The channel itself is somewhat spoilt by the ugly DOG in the top right of the screen at all times, and also has some of the "MTV Europe" side effects noted above - most noticeably the large spaces left for local advertising before films. 

You get the impression this channel, like all other Time channels, is not really meant for satellite reception: its heart lies in the cable camp.

Coming in different flavours for each region and with financial and sports based variants in its home country, this Atlanta-based channel is the grandfather of all other satellite channels. 

The story of Ted Turner's 'foolish idea' becoming a world news source (partially due the Gulf War) is well-known.  The international presentation has similarities, again, to the "MTV Europe" syndrome above, but is firmly rooted in English and is a lot more direct and a lot less 'euro-subtle' than most pan-nation channels tend to be. 

Possibly the most 'American' of all the American-owned satellite stations, and all the better for it!

FTV (Fashion Television)
Another pan-European single-subject channel, this time devoted to various dangerously thin models parading up and down the catwalks of Europe in the altogether. 

Possibly the strangest single-subject channel, presentation is confined to short, silent promos for forthcoming shows or the channel itself.  Bizarrely, the entire channel's text is in English - but maybe that's just what's fashionable.

To be honest, we're not sure whether this channel was pan-European - we suspect it was aimed directly at the UK and Ireland.  However, we can't resist including it, for this channel stepped straight out a the parallel world 20 minutes into the future...

The programming was a strange mixture of Australian versions of cheap BBC daytime shows; Televangelists who are praying for us as we speak and would like a small donation; and 30 minute infomercials for Tupperware-style containers and miracle cleaning fluids. 

All of these were presented under the banner of the output being entirely suitable all of the time for the whole family to watch.  I don't imagine anyone does, and being off-air for most of peak-time can't help either.  Truly the strangest 'general entertainment' channel we can imagine.