FilmNet
FilmNet was the name used for a group of premium television channels in Europe during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Launched on 29 March 1985, with a focus on Scandinavia, the Netherlands and the northern part of Belgium, Flanders, FilmNet offered first-run films and sport to subscribers, at a time when pay television was new in most of Europe. Channels under the name were later launched in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Greece, and the service was carried on cable in the United Kingdom during the 1980s and 1990s. Most of the FilmNet business was rebranded as Canal+ in 1997; the Greek channels alone continued under the FilmNet name until 2008.
FilmNet was one of the pioneering brands of European pay television. Its history runs from the first years of cable and satellite distribution, through the consolidation of the 1990s, into the Canal+ era, and several of its national operations survive in successor services today.
Foundation and launch in 1985
FilmNet was founded by the Swedish company Esselte Video, a division of the Swedish office supplies manufacturer Esselte, together with the Dutch film producer Rob Houwer. They formed a partnership with ATN, a joint venture of the Dutch magazine publisher VNU and United International Pictures, the European film distribution company associated with Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures. That combination of a Scandinavian backer, Dutch production and publishing interests and a major film distributor gave the new channel both finance and, crucially, access to films.
The channel was launched across Scandinavia and the Benelux countries on 29 March 1985. It transmitted from the ECS-1 satellite, the same satellite used by cable operators, which made it available for carriage on the cable networks then spreading through northern Europe. In the United Kingdom, where cable franchises were being built out in the same period, FilmNet was among the premium film services carried to British cable subscribers, giving UK viewers an early taste of subscription movie television before domestic premium channels developed.
The premium model
FilmNet's proposition was the classic premium one: for a monthly subscription, viewers received a channel devoted to relatively recent films, shown uncut and without the advertising breaks of free television, together with sport and other events as the service developed. In markets where the choice had previously been limited to a small number of public and commercial channels, a dedicated film channel was a substantial novelty.
In Scandinavia, the schedule was organised in branded blocks in its early form, with morning, afternoon and night strands, and as content beyond films increased, including sport and music, the main station was renamed FilmNet Plus in some descriptions of its development. A second channel, FilmNet: The Complete Movie Channel, was launched on most cable networks to serve film enthusiasts with a service devoted only to movies. The two channels later became FilmNet 1 and FilmNet 2. The companies behind FilmNet also operated the sports channel SuperSport in several of the same markets.
Expansion across Europe
From its Scandinavian and Benelux base, the FilmNet name was extended to new markets as pay television developed in central and southern Europe. FilmNet channels were launched in Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, and in Greece, where a FilmNet service began in 1994 as part of the country's first pay television offering. Each national operation was a local business with local subscriptions and rights, even though the brand and the underlying concept were shared.
This pattern, a single premium brand operated country by country, was the standard structure of European pay television in the period. Film rights were sold territory by territory, cable and later satellite platforms were national, and a channel that succeeded in the Netherlands or Sweden had to be rebuilt, in commercial terms, for each new market it entered.
Financial difficulty and the NetHold sale
Despite its early start and expansion, FilmNet failed to make a profit. Premium channels faced high film rights costs and slow subscriber growth in markets where cable penetration itself was still developing. In 1996 FilmNet was sold to NetHold, a joint venture of the South African company MultiChoice and Richemont. NetHold brought the channels into a larger international pay television group, but its ownership was brief.
The channels were sold on to the French Groupe Canal+ on 1 August 1997. The Canal+ deal did not include the Greek channels, which continued using the FilmNet name, under MultiChoice's Greek business, for another eleven years. The sale marked the end of FilmNet as an independent European network in most of its markets.
Rebranding as Canal+ in 1997
Under Canal+, the FilmNet channels in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Flanders and Poland were rebranded as Canal+ in 1997, with the Scandinavian change recorded in the autumn of that year. Poland followed a slightly different course: FilmNet there was merged into the existing Canal+ channel in February 1997, and the Polish Canal+ business continues to the present day.
The successors diverged thereafter. In Scandinavia, Canal+ was sold in 2003 to Nordic Capital and Baker Capital and renamed C More Entertainment, while continuing to use the Canal+ name in marketing for a period; it later passed to the SBS Broadcasting Group, and then to Sweden's TV4 Group. In the Netherlands, the former FilmNet channels were eventually bought by Liberty Global in 2005 and renamed Sport1 and Film1 in February 2006. In Flanders, the channels sold to Telenet in 2004 are known in their later form as Prime. Although the FilmNet brand disappeared in those markets in 1997, its operations thus continued, through successive owners, into modern pay and streaming services.
The Greek FilmNet, 1994 to 2008
Greece was the exception to the 1997 rebranding. The Greek FilmNet, launched in 1994 and owned through MultiChoice Hellas with its Nova satellite platform, continued under the FilmNet name as one of the oldest brands in European pay television. It was a 24-hour movie service, broadcasting blockbuster films and hit series, and operated three multiplex channels: FilmNet 1, the primary channel for blockbusters, series and special events such as awards ceremonies; FilmNet 2, a secondary channel with similar content time-shifted for convenient start times; and FilmNet 3, for adventure films and series with late-night adult content.
Greek reference material records that FilmNet featured hit films from Greece and abroad, including Hollywood blockbusters, premiere films debuting in Greece on the channel, and American series, and that it was available terrestrially with a decoder and by satellite on Nova, with repeaters enabling a large majority of the Greek population to receive the services. MultiChoice finally sold its Greek pay television business to Forthnet in April 2008, and the FilmNet brand disappeared on 1 June 2008, when the Greek channels were renamed Nova Cinema. That date marks the final end of the FilmNet name anywhere in Europe.
In a small coda, the FilmNet name was briefly revived in Scandinavia in October 2012, when the C More business launched a subscription online streaming service under the FilmNet name. That service was moved to the main C More websites on 30 June 2015, closing the brand's history.
FilmNet and British viewers
FilmNet's connection with the United Kingdom, recorded in this listing, is as a European premium film network carried on British cable during the 1980s and 1990s. Britain's early cable systems, built franchise by franchise, needed attractive premium content to sell subscriptions, and Continental satellite channels distributed from ECS-1 and successor satellites were a ready source. For British cable subscribers of the period, FilmNet sat alongside the first domestic premium experiments, such as Premiere and Mirrorvision, as part of the small first generation of pay film services available in the UK before satellite broadcasting and, later, digital platforms consolidated the market.
Programming character
Across its markets, FilmNet's character was set by film. First-run and recent movies formed the core schedule, with premieres as the main selling point, supported in some markets by sport, music and general entertainment as the services broadened, and by its sister sports operation SuperSport. The Greek service shows the mature form of the model: multiple film channels differentiated by content and start times, major American series shown alongside films, and film industry events such as the Academy Awards and Golden Globes used as showcase programming. Output arrangements with the major Hollywood studios, which the Greek service was noted for holding, were the commercial foundation on which the whole proposition rested.
Legacy
FilmNet's legacy is twofold. In northern and central Europe, its channels became the foundation of Canal+'s expansion in 1997, and their successor businesses, from Canal+ Poland to Film1 in the Netherlands, Prime in Flanders and the C More services in Scandinavia, carried its subscribers, rights relationships and premium model forward. In Greece, the name survived until 2008, an unusually long life that made FilmNet a fixture of Greek pay television for fourteen years.
For the history of television in the United Kingdom, FilmNet is part of the story of how British viewers first encountered premium, subscription film television: not initially through a British channel, but through European services carried on the new cable networks of the 1980s. Its launch in 1985, within months of Britain's own first premium film ventures, places it at the very beginning of pay television in Europe.
