Lifestyle (TV station)

Lifestyle was a British television station that could be received unencrypted from October 30, 1985, initially via cable and from March 1989 also via transponder 5 of the Astra 1A satellite - and thus also in Germany. The program consisted of magazines, shows, series, teleshopping and feature films.

The station was operated by the television division WHSTV of the British company WH Smith , which, among other things, was the main shareholder of the television station Sportkanal , which was broadcast until the merger with the station Eurosport in 1993 .

reception

Until the official shutdown on January 24, 1993 , the station shared the transponder with The Children's Channel , which broadcast its program on weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and on weekends until 1:00 p.m. At times, the program was on this channel also daily from the Japanese-language television 9:00 p.m. to 23:00 JSTV (Japan Satellite Television) spread. After its move to the Astra 1B satellite , Lifestyle occupied the additional airtime for the majority of the broadcasting of teleshopping offers.

Official broadcasting ceased on January 24, 1993. On the following day, the newly launched German television broadcaster VOX took over the transponder, initially daily from 1 p.m. However, Lifestyle was indirectly broadcasting for another 6 years. Initially, the lifestyle teleshopping window was continued on weekdays between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. under the name Sell-A-Vision . After the former pan-European The Children's Channel , which also remained on this transponder and which can be regarded as a pioneer by TV stations like Nick , was switched off in 1993 , the shopping window was switched to broadcast times from 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on weekdays relocated, on the weekends it was broadcast until 1:00 p.m. In February 1999, the broadcasting of Sell-A-Vision and thus the broadcasting of Lifestyle ended for good.

program

Lifestyle broadcast shows from the USA (e.g. Oprah and Sally Jesse Raphael ) as well as numerous soaps / telenovelas , such as B. Search For Tomorrow and The Edge of Night . Even more recent series, e.g. B. Remington Steele and Divorce Court , were originally broadcast. On the weekends, the broadcast logo was slightly modified and the label Weekend Lifestyle was used. Most of these were films and older series from American production, e. B. Sent Annie Oakley . Game shows such as B. Lingo , Classic Concentration , The Joker's Wild and Supermarket Sweep , all of which were imported from the USA, were part of the weekly program.

30-minute commercial presentations from the USA ( teleshopping ), e. B. the series Amazing Discoveries with the 2003 deceased Mike Levey. In contrast to the rest of the program, the teleshopping windows were also broadcast in German.

Lifestyle satellite jukebox broadcast daily from 11 p.m. until 6 a.m., where viewers could request music videos by telephone voting. This means that a selection process that has been practiced by music broadcasters to this day was used as early as the early 1990s. This program block was aimed in particular at viewers from Germany.

Pan-European broadcaster

Together with channels such as Europa TV (1986), Sky Channel (until 1989, before Murdoch's entry ) or the European Business Channel (until 1990), Lifestyle was one of the protagonists of a pan-European television that has not yet been launched due to the many national channels that have been launched since then has become a reality again. For a few years there were the same channels for cable and satellite households everywhere in Europe, while today, due to encryption and other factors, the television markets are almost everywhere country-specific (example: MTV Europe until 1997, today own MTVs in most countries).