NBC Europe

Super Channel 1987-1993

Launched on 30 January 1987, replacing 24-hour music channel Music Box, Super Channel was co-owned by all but one of the ITV companies at the time in the United Kingdom.[1] Virgin Group had a majority stake in Music Box (60%) and would own 15% of the equity with the rest being split between ITV franchise holders including Granada, Yorkshire, LWT, Central, Anglia, Tyne Tees, Ulster, Grampian, Scottish, and Border Television. Thames Television was the only one of the ITV contractors not to participate.[2] It competed with Sky Channel, forerunner of Sky1, which was the only other major pan-European satellite-channel around at the time. Unlike Sky Channel, Super Channel's syndicated output was less American and more European. Many of the programmes were what it called the "Best of British", sourced from ITV or the BBC, while ITN produced news bulletins (see also ITN World News). It also broadcast syndicated non-British European programmes such as the Dutch sitcom Zeg 'ns Aaa (with English subtitles).

Super Channel fared poorly, due to UK programming seen as unsuitable for European audiences, such as drama being seen as "too violent" or "too realistic",[3] as well as a dispute with the British actors unions who demanded additional fees for viewing by European audiences which meant that it could no longer offer the 'Best of British to a European audience'.[2]

Within a year, the ITV companies sold the channel to the Italian Marcucci family, owners of Videomusic, the first music channel in Italy, with a minority stake being held by Richard Branson's Virgin plc, and the programming changed from British to pan-European, although it continued carrying ITN's World News bulletins.

At the beginning Super Channel was based in the heart of London, 19-22 Rathbone Place, London W1P 1DF, in the same building as Music Box; the building would later become the home of CNN International until 2007. For a number of months the channel's transmission facilities were provided by Molinare at Fouberts Place, London W1, it returned briefly to 19-22 Rathbone Place until the Marcucci family acquired Melrose House, 14 Lanark Square, in Limeharbour (London) where it set up a state of the art transmission facility.

In 1996 the channel (along with its sister channel CNBC Europe) was transmitted from the GE building in Hammersmith, London. The transmission suite used cutting edge (at the time) Pro-Bel COMPASS and MAPP automation, and Profile video servers for all commercials and promotions. Programmes continued to be played from tape, however.

NBC Super Channel 1993-1996

In 1993, the station was having financial difficulties, and was taken over by the American company General Electric, then-parent of the NBC television network, and became NBC Super Channel.[4] In 1996, the channel was renamed NBC Europe, but was, from then on, almost always referred to as simply "NBC" on the air.

Most of NBC Europe's prime time programming was produced in Europe, but after 10 pm Central European Time on weekday evenings, the channel aired The Tonight Show, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and Later, hence its slogan "Where the Stars Come Out at Night." Most NBC News programs were broadcast on NBC Europe, including Dateline NBC, Time and Again and NBC Nightly News, which was aired live. The Today Show was also initially shown live in the afternoons, but was later broadcast the following morning instead, by which time it was more than half a day old. That meant that all news portions had to be replaced with European updates produced by ITN in London. ITN also supplied the network with the main European newscasts before and after the GE takeover. The European weather was produced by the BBC at first, but was later taken over by NBC in the U.S.

NBC Europe carried virtually no prime time fiction entertainment programs shown on NBC in the US, because they were usually owned and distributed by other studios under the fin-syn rules (which did not apply in Europe). NBC would have had to buy the rights for each country in order to show them on NBC Europe, which would have been too expensive. Even for shows that NBC Studios owned itself, it was generally more financially viable to sell the rights country by country either to broadcast or cable/satellite channels than to air them on NBC Europe. The most notable exceptions to this rule were brief runs of Profiler and The Pretender, as well as short-lived US sitcoms Union Square and Mr. Rhodes. That is widely considered to be one of the main reasons why NBC Europe was ultimately not a success.

Studio of news programme "GIGA Real"

NBC Europe stopped broadcasting to most of Europe in 1998, when the DFA (Deutsche Fernsehnachrichten Agentur) took it over and moved it to Düsseldorf. Most of the satellite feeds of NBC Europe became either National Geographic or CNBC. NBC Europe continued to operate on the German cable TV, fed by one digital satellite link from Eutelsat II-F1 (later Hotbird 5). In November 1998 the first German programming started airing. Programming was assembled with content from GIGA and CNBC Europe, as well as other shows. In 2004, NBC Universal took over the DFA and consequently NBC Europe.

On 29 September 2005 NBC Europe was split into GIGA and the new channel Das Vierte. NBC Europe was replaced by Das Vierte. In fact Das Vierte is still broadcasting with the licence of NBC Europe on cable TV; on satellite, IPTV and digital cable it is a new channel. Das Vierte broadcasts a special version on cable TV, including CNBC Europe, and from 29 September 2005 to 31 March 2006, also GIGA. This is necessary to keep the licence and the cable channel.

In 2012 The Walt Disney Company acquired Das Vierte and closed the channel on New Year's Eve 2013. On January 17, 2014, the channel was replaced by Disney Channel Germany switching from pay-TV to free-to-air.

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Due to limitations on the amount of entertainment programming on the network, NBC Europe aired a number of original programming in tandem with American programming that had not been aired in Europe beforehand. These programmes include:

• Uphill Struggle for Pan-Europe Stations : Televising to a Continent article from International Herald Tribune March 16, 1994
• Superchannel at TV Ark at Archive.today (archived 24 December 2012)