The Power Station (UK)
The Power Station was a British television channel operated by British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB), and later by British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) after BSB merged with Sky Television. It was a dedicated music channel, broadcasting from 29 March 1990 until 8 April 1991. It was one of the five channels launched by BSB, and it survived the November 1990 merger for five months before being closed to make way for Sky Movies on its Marcopolo transponder.
Overview
The Power Station was BSB's music channel, aimed at teenagers and young music fans with a schedule of video shows, chart programmes, genre specialists and live concerts. It was the most youth-oriented of the five BSB services, and its presenters included several figures who would go on to prominent careers in British broadcasting. The channel closed at 4am on 8 April 1991, when it was decided that MTV would be used as the music channel on BSkyB's Astra satellite service.
The channel's lifespan of just over a year made it one of the shorter-lived BSB services, but it outlasted Galaxy, Now and The Computer Channel, which were all closed in late 1990. Only The Movie Channel and The Sports Channel, which were retained and rebranded, survived longer.
Launch on BSB
The Power Station launched on 29 March 1990 as part of the BSB channel line-up. It was broadcast from BSB's Marcopolo 1 satellite at 12.015 GHz, from the company's headquarters at Marco Polo House in London. Its broadcast hours ran from approximately 08:00 to 00:30, giving it one of the longest broadcast days of the BSB services.
The channel was free-to-view, unlike BSB's Movie Channel which was the consortium's only subscription service. Its sister channels were The Movie Channel, The Sports Channel, Galaxy, Now and The Computer Channel.
Breakfast and daytime programming
The Power Station's schedule was built around named, presenter-led strands. Power Up, broadcast on weekdays from 7.00 to 9.00am, was the channel's breakfast show, hosted by Chris Evans, who would later become one of Britain's best-known broadcasters. The daytime line-up included The Power Hour on weekdays from 12.00 to 1.00pm, The Carmen Ejogo Video Show on weekdays from 4.00 to 5.00pm, The Power Chart with Pat Sharp on weekdays from 5.00 to 6.00pm and on Sundays from 4.00 to 5.00pm, Sushi TV on weekdays from 6.00 to 7.00pm, and Jonathan Coleman's Swing Shift from Monday to Thursday at 11.00pm to 1.00am.
The presenter line-up drew on established names in British pop broadcasting. Pat Sharp, the chart-show presenter, and Carmen Ejogo, the video-show host, gave the channel a familiar face for young viewers, while Chris Evans's breakfast show was an early showcase for the presenter who would later front major radio and television programmes.
Specialist genre shows
Beyond the mainstream video strands, The Power Station offered specialist programming across a wide range of genres. The channel featured Boy George's weekly chat show Blue Radio, a three-hour weekly programme, alongside The Power Club, presented by Amanda de Cadenet. The Power Hour also appeared as a top-ten show for example albums, and the rap strand Krush Rap catered to hip-hop fans.
Rage saw DJ Elayne Smith present funky rap, soul, acid house and funk, while The Chart of Charts was a two-hour chart pick covering indie, dance, metal and US music. Power Haus was described as a "headbangers' heaven" for rock and metal fans, Speakeasy featured jazz, and rock music was the focus of Raw Power. This breadth of genre coverage reflected the channel's ambition to serve the full spectrum of youth music tastes in a single service.
Live concerts
The Power Station broadcast live concerts from a range of artists. Concerts came from acts including the Inspiral Carpets, Belinda Carlisle, Jason Donovan, Jerry Lee Lewis and Phil Collins, with some sources also noting EMF among the featured performers. The live music programming was a distinguishing feature of the channel, offering performances that went beyond the standard video-clip format of early music television.
The concerts reinforced the channel's positioning as a serious music service rather than merely a video jukebox, and they gave it programming that could not easily be replicated by competitors relying solely on promotional videos supplied by record companies.
The BSB–Sky merger and survival
In November 1990, British Satellite Broadcasting and Sky Television merged to form British Sky Broadcasting. BSB's Galaxy and Now channels were closed, with their transponders handed to Sky One and Sky News respectively, but at first The Power Station survived, gaining a "British Sky Broadcasting" suffix on its logo.
The survival was temporary. BSkyB's Astra satellite service already had MTV as its music channel, and the merged company decided that MTV would serve as the music channel across the combined operation. The Power Station, broadcasting on BSB's Marcopolo satellite, was surplus to requirements.
Closure on 8 April 1991
The Power Station was closed down at 4am on 8 April 1991. At 03:56, "All Together Now" by the Farm was the last music video to be played on the channel. Two hours later, at 05:59, the channel 4 position for BSB viewers became Sky Movies, a subscription movie channel.
Sky Movies was given free to BSB viewers for one month if they also subscribed to The Movie Channel. The handover of the transponder from a free-to-view music channel to a subscription film service symbolised the new company's commercial priorities: premium, pay content over free genre services.
Replacement by Sky Movies
The Power Station's Marcopolo transponder was taken over by Sky Movies, which launched in its place at 6.00am on 8 April 1991. Sky Movies was already BSkyB's subscription film channel on the Astra system, and the move extended its reach to the remaining BSB viewers on Marcopolo. The channel was given free to former Power Station viewers who subscribed to The Movie Channel for the month of April 1991, easing the transition.
The closure left MTV as the music channel on BSkyB's Astra satellite service, ending the brief period in which the merged company operated two music channels on two different satellite systems.
Presenters and their later careers
The Power Station's presenter roster included several names that went on to significant careers. Chris Evans, the host of the Power Up breakfast show, became one of Britain's most prominent radio and television presenters. Boy George, who presented the weekly Blue Radio chat show, was already an established pop star whose broadcasting work continued in later years. Pat Sharp remained a fixture of British chart and radio broadcasting, and Carmen Ejogo went on to a successful acting career. The channel thus served as an early platform for talent that would shape British popular broadcasting in the decades that followed.
Legacy
The Power Station's legacy lies in its role as BSB's youth music service and as a bridge between the BSB era and the MTV era of British satellite music television. Its thirteen-month run demonstrated the appetite for dedicated music channels among young satellite viewers, an appetite that MTV, and later a host of digital music channels, would go on to serve. For viewers who owned BSB's squarial equipment, The Power Station was the music channel of the BSB years, remembered for its named strands, its genre breadth and its live concerts, and for the presenters who passed through it on their way to wider fame.
Key facts
The Power Station launched on 29 March 1990 on British Satellite Broadcasting, headquartered in London. Its owner was British Satellite Broadcasting in 1990 and British Sky Broadcasting from 1990 to 1991. Its sister channels were The Movie Channel, The Sports Channel, Galaxy, Now and The Computer Channel. It broadcast free-to-view on the Marcopolo 1 satellite at 12.015 GHz, with broadcast hours of approximately 08:00 to 00:30. Its presenters included Chris Evans, Pat Sharp, Carmen Ejogo, Jonathan Coleman, Boy George and Amanda de Cadenet. It closed at 4am on 8 April 1991, with "All Together Now" by the Farm as its final video, and was replaced on its transponder by Sky Movies.
