Swindon Cable
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Swindon Cable was the first Cable Television network in the United Kingdom.
Local programming in Swindon began life as 'Swindon Viewpoint' on the 11 September 1973 as an experiment in community cable television, or public access television. This experiment started with EMI finance on the Radio Rentals cable radio network. This enabled local people to train and use television production equipment. The programmes that were produced were mainly 'one-off' documentaries and made about such subjects that were of interest to them. The studios were based at 14 Victoria Road, Swindon. This experiment ended in 1980. Then in November 1981 Radio Rentals Cable Television launched the United Kingdom's first paying movie channel 'Cinematel' which showed films every night and this operation, which was put together in Swindon, was also used by a sister operation in Kent.
The distribution signals were 'electronically scrambled' and to receive the service you needed to subscribe - you were then given a 'decoder' to descramble the signal.
Local programming was started again and headed by Sue Stevens, who had previously been involved with Swindon Viewpoint, as before the programmes were about the local area and also 'one off' documentaries about events happening in or around Swindon. The service also provided another first which was a local 'teletext' service called Thorntel. This provided all kinds of information; bus times, train times, local weather, job vacancies - even horoscopes.
'Scene in Swindon' became the United Kingdom's first local regular news magazine programme and aired for the first time on the 1st May 1984. As well as local news a regular sports programme was also produced; 'Sport on Saturday' presented by Mike West, this was also a 'first' in the United Kingdom as local teams had their results published shortly after the games had finished.
In 1984 Radio Rentals Cable Television moved from Victoria Road to the Hawksworth Industrial Estate and re-launched the station as 'Swindon Cable' which was opened by HRH The Duke of Kent. The news magazine programme was also re-launched as 'Focus on Swindon' and was again produced by Sue Stevens with presenter / reporter Trevor Cribb. The programming was so successful that Focus increased from twice to three times a week. The programmes theme music was also used later on as the theme from 'Whickers World'.
Unfortunately, due to a change in the cable television industry at this time, Thorn EMI sold their interest in the station to British Telecom. This spelled the end for 'Focus on Swindon'. The last programme was shown on the 4th February 1986. The station was then replaced with programmes brought in such as The Bold and The Beautiful.
When the channel was re-launched another first was introduced to the United Kingdom - The Home Shop Tele Bingo Show presented by Paul Langcaster. This show enabled customers to play for cash prizes. Numbers were drawn at random and the viewers marked them off at home. The programme was sponsored with yet another first as Home Shopping hit the screen, Littlewoods stores were a major contributor here as viewers could see the goods on-screen and then pick up the phone to order them... is this the fore runner to all the shopping channels we see today?
When the sponsorship deal ended the channel was again re-launched. In June 1989 under its new name 'The Local Channel', regular programmes were re-introduced, but this time on a much smaller scale. Just one member of staff and a team of volunteers. Between them they produced a familiar mix of programming about local sports and local news and events. The teletext operation was completely re-vamped using sophisticated new computer technology. This was to become the fore runner of the Cable Vision Information Service.
Once again the station was taken over by another company, this time from Canada. This enabled the station to be refitted with the latest equipment and became, at that time, the most modern local programming facility in the Country. In 1994 from newly refurbished studios in Hawksworth the new look 'Swindon's Local Channel' was born.
Swindon Cable's Local Channel aimed to give the people of Swindon a much better view on current affairs and other local events happening in and around the town. Ashley Heath and Paul Langcaster presented the town with 'news, views, entertainment and the infamous Cable Christmas Show'. Nobby Swatton presented all the sports related issues and results. The Local Sports review and results round-up becoming a main programme.
In 1998 under the ComTel name, the Swindon team undertook another monumental task - this time to produce a regular magazine programme for Oxford - this was known as Channel 10 - Scene in Oxford. Just one team of four people produced these programmes for the two locations from the one production facility in Swindon.
During its final week of programming Paul Langcaster and Ashley Heath presented an 'overview' of 20 years of local programmes made in Swindon. Amongst these Swindon Cable pioneered the fore runner to many programmes we still see today. 'Cable Club' featured a whole host of programmes including 'Music Box', 'Cinematel', 'Encore', 'Cable Club' and 'Cable text' - 'Cable Club' began in 1981 and was aimed at a younger audience.
NTL took over the old ComTel franchises and were to introduce 'video on demand' though this does not seem to have materialised. NTL Closed down Swindon Cable in June 2000, but Swindon Cable, as custodians of the longest local programming channel, have played a very significant and important part in the History of local television in the United Kingdom.
