Wometco Home Theater
| Wometco Home Theater | |
|---|---|
| Launched | 1977 |
| Closed | 1986 |
| Owned by | Wometco Enterprises |
| Picture format | 480i (SDTV) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Broadcast area | New York metropolitan area |
| Headquarters | Fairfield, New Jersey |
The Wometco Home Theater (WHT) was an early pay television service in the New York City area, that was owned by Miami-based Wometco Enterprises, which owned several major network affiliates in mid-sized media markets and its flagship WTVJ in Miami (then a CBS affiliate on channel 4, now an NBC owned-and-operated station on channel 6). The signals were broadcast beginning in August 1977 on WWHT-TV (channel 68) and later on WSNL-TV (channel 67) out of Smithtown, New York.
Initially subscribers paid $15 for a set-top descrambling box that allowed subscribers to view channel 68's scrambled television signals (a later addressable, 2-channel version of this descrambler was developed under vice president of engineering, Alex MacDonald). The service was similar to Home Box Office (HBO), but a Wometco executive told The New York Times that WHT was more likely to select films with a particular interest to the New York City area. Wometco also targeted areas that were not yet served by cable television (although parts of Manhattan had cable television service as early as 1971, the vast majority of the five boroughs of New York City would not begin receiving cable television service until 1988).
Programming consisted of 12 features a month, including movies and entertainment specials. In addition, select home games of the NHL's New York Islanders were broadcast live from the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Each program was repeated five times during the month. During the daytime, WWHT was a small commercial television station. The station was originally going to be a general entertainment station with shows that independents WNEW-TV (channel 5), WOR-TV (channel 9) and WPIX (channel 11) passed on. However, the costs were too high to acquire such programs so the station broadcast only a couple hours of low budget syndicated shows, The Uncle Floyd Show, public affairs programs, religious programs, stock market reports, and minority-interest and foreign language programs. In 1980, WHT began programming a movie from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. as well, later adding the adult-themed late night service, "Nightcap" with its black cat logo.
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