Worcester's Channel 5 allocation (was Re: MyTV joins MyNetwork)

[Tony Abruzzese]

On 7/24/06 7:22 AM, SteveOrdinetz wrote:
>
> Didn't 27 experiment with some sort of pay-tv system where the signal 
> was scrambled and you needed  a decoder at one point in the mid-late 
> 70s?  If you tried to watch without the decoder you got out-of-sync 
> video, and an audio track that was a pitch for the pay service.
>
Yes, as did Boston's Channel 68.  Channel 27 subscribed to a service 
called Preview which signed on at 7 p.m. with movies a la HBO. The 
service ran into the early 80s, because there was still a market in 
Northern Worcester county in many towns in which the smaller cable 
operators could not feasibly service the outlying areas. IIRC, a 
co-worker who lived in Winchendon still had her Preview service in late 
1981.

The Channel 68 service was called Star.

-- 
Tony Abruzzese
BUSM Dept of Biochemistry