20 Years of Digital TV

It’s the twentieth anniversary of digital television! To be precise, the twentieth anniversary of the commercial launch of Sky Digital, with ONdigital launching on 15th November.

Digital TV introduced features we take for granted today, such as an electronic programming guide (on Sky at least), widescreen, interactivity, more channels, radio through your TV, and the end of a lot of analogue reception quirks. It also allowed for accessibility features including one-button-press subtitles and audio description.






Here’s an interesting segment from the Money Programme from the time.

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Though it was a week earlier the BBCs first digital only channel launched:


One of the first programmes was this, the Tomorrow's World Guide to Digital TV

I always loved that ONdigital helicopter promo.

I remember, as a 24-year old idents and channels geek, being incredibly a) excited and b) disappointed that I couldn't watch the launch of BBC Choice because it went live a few days before Sky Digital's launch.

I had similar feelings about News 24 the year prior because I didn't live in a cable area.

PS I did think when I got ONdigital (later Sky) that digital standard definition TV pictures lacked the depth of the analogue pictures. And I still do feel that. I think I posted back here in mid-2006 (how long ago!) that HD reminded me of analogue.

We were a few years behind the digital curve at home, so I missed out on the joys of the BBC's test film at the time...

It was used again when the BBCi streams were added to DTT (shortly after the collapse of ITV Digital) in May-ish 2002 - it was really quite exciting finding those (as nothing had been announced at that point.

And in 2012 before the launch of the 24 interactive streams for the Olympics - even though it was SD, it had the benefit of the BBC owning the copyright to the material.

To be picky, Sky Digital introduced IPGs. Most Cable services had an EPG from the mid 90s.

Back when Ruby Wax was the big BBC star.

Some slight over-promising in this… I'm still waiting for a digital radio that looks like that one.

Here's an interesting BBC trail, attempting to explain that digital television doesn't automatically equal subscription television. Even though I think it was possible to buy an ONdigital box at full price without a subscription I don't think many chose to do so.

Totally off-topic here... but I wonder how many people watched the Money Programme in the late '90s just for Maya?

I'm slightly ashamed to admit that having more than four or five channels wasn't something associated with me and my parents until mid-2002, shortly after our move to Ireland from London. Obviously, while we were still living in Ealing, we'd have seen all the OnDigital/ITV Digital and Sky Digital ads, as well as all the BBC Digital/Online promos - this one playing a part in me becoming a big Fatboy Slim fan:

I am so glad digital TV exists. I also find early digital TV extremely interesting, as I was born in 2003.