Swindon Cable

Swindon Cable

Country	United Kingdom
Headquarters	Hawksworth Ind Est, Swindon (1984–2000)
Ownership
Owner	ComTel(1998–2000) NTL (2000)

Swindon Cable was the UK's first commercial Cable TV franchise. It was originally set up by Thorn EMI as Radio Rentals Cable Television. It later changed the local company name to Swindon Cable. As well as relaying satellite channels it operated its own local Cable TV channel known as Swindon's Local Channel. It closed permanently in 2000 after 16 years of broadcasting mostly local programming on the Wiltshire town's cable network cable network.

Swindon Viewpoint

Local programming in Swindon began life as Swindon Viewpoint on 11 September 1973 as an experiment in community television on cable TV. It was managed initially by Richard Dunn, who later went on to become Head of Thames Television. This experiment started with EMI finance on the Radio Rentals cable radio and television relay network. Local people were trained to use television production equipment. Many of the programmes were 'one-off' documentaries that interested the volunteers involved or programmes of more general public interest. The studios were in the basement of Radio Rentals premises on Swindon's Victoria Road.

The experiment ended in 1976 when EMI decided to pull out of funding the service. Although it was popular and flourishing. The main reason seems to have been that the Government would not allow advertising or sponsorship. Amid much local concern, Swindon Viewpoint was sold to the public of Swindon for £1 and an elected board of directors set up to oversee it. Viewpoint thus became the first television service that was publicly owned and managed. Programming continued successfully for the rest of the decade with a staff of around six to train the public to make programmes, and was funded by a mix of sponsorship and a Ladbrokes operated lottery scheme (the forerunner of the National Lottery. Viewpoints central programming strand was a magazine based programmes called 'Seen in Swindon'. When video programming wasn't being shown the channel broadcast an audio service known as Radio Swindon Viewpoint, the service could still only be received on a television and during this time captions displaying local information were shown.

When the Lottery scheme ended in 1980, funding dried up and Viewpoint went into partnership with Media Arts, the public media centre in Swindon. Though this partnership recognised and maintained the independence of Viewpoint. With no staff the operation was now entirely volunteer based, but nevertheless programmeds continued through the eighties. Its main programme strand was called 'Access Swindon'. In the early nineties Media Arts was restructured and support for Viewpoint was ended. With no access to production resources the board of directors resolved to suspend programming operations but to maintain its structure and registration as a Company, pending a more favourable climate. It has since restarted operations online where it shows selections from its archive of programmes, as well as recent material.

Swindon Cable, The Local Channel and Closure

Radio Rental Cable Television started the UK's first pay-per-view movie channel, 'Cinematel' in 1981, the films were also shown on a sister cable operation in Chatham, Kent. The filmes broadcast from studios based at 14 Victoria Hill, Swindon. The signals were encoded and the service was available only to subscribers, who had 'set-top' boxes to decode the signal.

When it was not showing films the cable company it produced some local programming. The programmes were one off documentaries but were quickly followed by a live news-magazine format programme called 'Scene in Swindon'. Many of these programmes were presented by Sue Stevens, who had been involved with Swindon Viewpoint and who provided all the in-vision links before and after the films. The service also provided a local 'teletext' service, with local information such as bus times and job vacancies.

In 1985 the opereration was re-branded as 'Swindon Cable' and moved to new studios on the Hawksworth Industrial Estate, the new studios, the largest between London and Bristol were formarly opened by HRH Prince Micheal, Duke of Kent|The Duke of Kent. The news programme was also re-named as part of this move and became 'Focus on Swindon', produced by Sue Stevens with presenter/reporter Trevor Cribb. The production team included; Jerry Duller, Paul Langcaster, Nick Claxton, Mark Bowes and many others. The channel increased the programme's frequency from twice a week to three times a week. Thorn EMI then sold its stake in the channel to British Telecom, which pulled the plug on 'Focus on Swindon' on 4 February 1986. Bought-in content, such as CBS 's daytime soap The Bold and The Beautiful which replaced the community programming.

An experiment in 1987 led to the first television bingo show with cash prizes. Viewers marked their cards at home to win cash prizes as Paul Langcaster (Who had also trained with Swindon Viewpoint) and Trevor Cribb drew numbers at random in 'The Homeshop Telebingo Show' from a studio dressed with goods available from the Littlewoods catalogue shopping business's retail stores.

When the sponsorship deal ended the channel was again re-launched as 'Swindon's Local Channel'. Paul Langcaster remained as the only member of staff and was supported by a team of volunteers including; Nobby Swatton and Chris Scott. There was a mix of short news, sport and one-off documentaries. The popularity and scale of the operation grew as technology improved. It eventually had a full-time staff of 4 and a large team of volunteers. They produced a familiar mix of programming about local sports and local news and events. The teletext operation was re-vamped and using the latest computer technology at the time created the Swindon Cable Vision information service.

After a Canadian company (CUC Cablevision, owner of Trilium Cable) took the channel over, its studio was refitted. Paul Langcaster visited Canada to make a bid for the investment in programming equipment. The funding meant the move from the Hi-band Umatic format to the latest Sony Betacam format, it was then the country's most modern local programming facility. Paul Langcaster managed the channel and was joined by Ashley Heath, and together they presented news, views, entertainment and the annual big live event, The Cable Christmas Show'.

The Swindon team in 1998 started producing a community news magazine programme for ComTel in Oxford on Channel 10 of the network. The programme was call 'Scene in Oxford'. By this time ComTel had become the trading name as they consolidated cable companies across the UK on the back of providing cable based telephone services. ComTel eventually was rebranded as NTL and finally the Swindon Cable brand disappeared completely.

During Swindon Cable's last week, Paul Langcaster and Ashley Heath showed excerpts from Swindon-made community television programming.

NTL (later renamed Virgin Media) took over ComTel's franchises and announced a plan to introduce video-on-demand but that never materialised.

Cabled in the 21st century

Swindon was the UK's broadband capital, with more than 50% of households having high-speed internet access, the BBC reported on 2 August 2006. It quoted research group Point Topic, whose report put the town's high broadband take-up down to its being relatively prosperous and well covered by BT's DSL network and cable.

External links

• Swindon Viewpoint
• Swindon Cable Archive