Back in the earliest days of cable TV, which in my case was 1981 and 1982, one of the first movie channels was something called HTN, or Home Theater Network.
HTN only cost $5 a month. It also only aired two movies a day, both after 8 pm. The films they showed were always PG rated. They did occasionally show R rated films, but they were edited to a PG rating. I remember them showing FIRST MONDAY IN OCTOBER and EXCALIBUR in this way.
Each month, they would have a little color guide of all the films they showed that month, something that many of the cable channels did.
The channel wasn’t around for long. They could get away with 2 movies a night in the early days, when even HBO wasn’t on 24 hours a day. But, soon after, they were off my cable system.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
FORGOTTEN TV: HOME THEATER NETWORK (Early 1980's)
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4 comments:
I remember this HTN station in
1982 when we first got cable. We weren't supposed to get it, but it came in pretty good anyway for some reason. They touted only playing G, PG family-oriented stuff. Then to my shock, the R-rated "Outland" showed up on there one late afternoon/evening. Must have been an edited version. The station lasted into 1983, but not much longer than that.
We had it on our cable network from the time we moved to Syracuse, New York in June 1980 until it was replaced with Cinemax in Spring 1981. As a 12-year old boy, I was thrilled with the change, as I could now sneak downstairs on weekend and summer nights and watch the extremely hard R movies they showed on Cinemax.
I was 15 y/o in early 1986. That's when my family got a 12' Paraclipse satellite dish with a Panasonic C-2000 satellite receiver. HTN would start playing at around 4 p.m. I remember watching Weird Science, Brewsters Millions, Steel, and many other mid 80s movies. I don't think it lasted into 1987. It never went to VC-2 scrambling. I do remember that.
Hello. I recently posted a complete 1981 Programming Guide for HTN at my Blog here on Blogger. It can be viewed here.
http://themaproomblog.blogspot.com/
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