Sheffield cable TV pre 1980s

[subverTV]

Apparently Sheffield used to have a cable and community TV system well before Telewest ever showed up (1960s?) and we're trying to find out more information about it or ideally some archive material. Does anybody have any more information on this as it seems very sparse on the ground otherwise.

 

Many thanks

Anthony

[pitsmoorlad]

Cablevision was broadcast from Matilda Street to council properties that had cable TV. The station manager was a guy named John Brand. It relied a lot on local volunteers to supplement the meagre number of paid staff that they had. Don't think that anyone from Cablevision went on to become a household name but I may be wrong.

[gerryuk]

I was brought up in Burngreave in the mid 70s. On television we used to get BBC1, BBC2, ITV YORKSHIRE ITV TYNE TEES and SHEFFIELD CABLEVISION. We did not have airials on the roof we had a cable tv box fitted on the wall.

I believe it was a council opperated scheme.

To what i can remember of cablevision, during the daytime you would get a Sheffield city council logo on the screen with Radio Hallam playing in the background. Every hour or so you would get a local news programme aired from some studio centre near Sheffields railway station. Cant remember if they did a 30 minute news programme in the evening. On saturday morning i can remember them doing some live programmes from the now defunct ABC cinema on Angel Street. It was for kids. I think you had to live in a council house to be able to recieve this channel.

Not sure when Sheffield Cablevision started but me thinks in the region of 1973.

When the plug was pulled (late 70s i think) we got the delights of Lew Grades ATV piped to the house from Birmingham. Those were the days when ITV showed diffrent films at the same time in diffrent regions, we were spoilt for choice.

[desy]

THink that was also an organisation called BRW was a cable company and a box was under the television that you subscribed to by paying cash into the meter underneath. You received a booklet every 2 weeks stating the programmes on and how much it was to subscribe. All I can remember it was going in 1966ish.

[Internetowl]

Wasn't it called 'Redifussion' or sommat back at the end of the 70's - weren't they the first to show C4 - I remember Friday tea-time the Tube - it could have been later - couldn't get C4 on normal ariel at the time...

[A.B.Yaffle]

The flats on the Hanover estate still have the old sockets on the wall with about 10 holes in which someone told me was for the old cable tv system.

[sccsux]

Originally posted by Internetowl

Wasn't it called 'Redifussion' or sommat back at the end of the 70's - weren't they the first to show C4 - I remember Friday tea-time the Tube - it could have been later - couldn't get C4 on normal ariel at the time...

 

 

 

Yep.

 

Redifusion piped our TV way back in the late 60s-mid 70's after which time it was deemed to be no longer a viable option for distributing TV & radio signals.

 

 

The cables had a big socket with connections simular to a scart plug/socket combination.

 

 

Never had a cr4p signal until they killed the service & everyone had to have an ariel:loopy:

[WallBuilder]

I lived just off Abbeydale road in a privately owned house and remember the apalling local Sheffield cable channel. A lot of it was in black and white and the presenters were always making mistakes or losing their train of thought particularily in the news bullitins. The HQ was on Matilda street and the cable was a half inch thick black rubber appearance. In the house you had a large usually black flat box on your wall and then a lead running from the box to your tv ariel socket.

No-one's mentioned that when there was no actual program being broadcast we sometimes had a girl dancing in a bikini to music. [i'm not kidding] I was only 12 or 13 and remember this very well.

[gerryuk]

Sheffield Cablevision started broadcasting on August 29th 1973 and died a death on January 2nd 1977. After it closed the old ITV company ATV in Birmingham began transmitting on that channel.

Sheffield Cablevision was run by a company called British Relay Network.

Not sure if any tapes of their programmes exist. Me thinks a very small company set up in some council house bedroom lol.

[Plain Talker]

We had the "Rediffusion" boxes on Hyde Park Flats in the early 80's. My gran had it in her flat on Park Hill, in the 70's. (I also seem to remember my aunts, in their flats on Norfolk Park having it, too.)

 

 

What I DO remember about them was that you could get radio through these sockets, as well as the tv:-

we used to plug a speaker-wire -ends into the socket, and we could get the radio channels (depending on which holes you used, you got different channels.!!!)

 

I remember, there was a certain kind of tv you could rent, that had an aerial plug which would connect directly into the socket. This tv had unusual setup of channel buttons, which, if you pushed a switch, could alternate between the tv and the radio channels.

 

PT