Music Box (TV)

Music Box
Launched	29 March 1984
Closed	30 January 1987

Music Box was a pioneering pan-European 24-hour cable and satellite channel that ran from 29 March 1984 to 30 January 1987, and was operated by Music Box Ltd. It was originally one of three channels along with PREM1ERE and The Children's Channel, that formed Thorn EMI's venture into satellite television, as a British version of music channel MTV. Music Box later found itself as part of Virgin Vision, one of Richard Branson's business ventures launched in 1983.

As a 24-hour TV channel in the 1980s, Music Box was able to reach 60 million potential viewers in Europe and the Middle East thanks to satellite distribution. At the time, a satellite dish and receiver were very expensive and for this reason the channel had better viewing figures in countries where cable TV was largely used, such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Scandinavia; it was also a success in the UK and Republic of Ireland. Music Box was also partially retransmitted on several terrestrial local channels in Italy and a special Italian version of Music Box was created in spring of 1988. Some Music Box shows were also retransmitted by Japanese broadcaster NHK. In 1986, the Yorkshire Television region of the UK's ITV decided to go 24 hours a day, but little cash was invested in that service, and so much of the downtime was filled with a rebroadcast of Music Box. It was the first time that an ITV company regularly broadcast 24 hours. Music Box was originally based in the heart of London, in a building where Virgin Vision and Super Channel were also based, and later gave home to the London offices of CNN International and Cartoon Network. The address during the satellite years was 19-21 Rathbone Place, London.

On 30 January 1987 Super Channel was launched on the same satellite frequency previously used by Music Box on pan-European satellite Eutelsat 1-F1 located at 13° east, replaced during 1987 by Eutelsat 1-F4. For this reason Music Box stopped being a 24-hour TV channel, and Virgin set up Music Box as an independent producer of music programmes, continuing to broadcast its shows until the end of September 1987 for 10 hours a day on Super Channel. From October 1987 until January 1990 it was reduced from 10 hours a day to just a couple of hours a day of music programmes to be produced for Super Channel, with a two-month-long break in late 1988 due to problems related to the sale of Super Channel. Music Box ended its satellite broadcasts in January 1990 with the last pan-European showing of The Power Hour.

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