Supriya Ghosh (Editor)

Viasat Film

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Country
  
Sweden

Owned by
  
Modern Times Group

Digita (Finland)
  
Channel 125

Founded
  
27 August 1989

Launched
  
27 August 1989 (as TV1000) 3 March 2012 (as Viasat Film)

Picture format
  
4:3 (576i, SDTV) 16:9 (HDTV)

Broadcast area
  
Nordic countries and Eastern Europe

Formerly called
  
TV1000 (1989-2012; except in Baltic, Russia and CIS)

Profiles

Viasat film nordic channel ident


Viasat Film is a group of cable and satellite movie channels broadcasting to the Nordic countries and owned by Modern Times Group (MTG).

Contents

Viasat film drama channel ident


History

Viasat Film was started by Kinnevik on 27 August 1989 as TV1000, using one of the sixteen transponders on Astra 1A, the very first Astra satellite.

In June 1991 TV1000 announced that they channel would merge with another pay movie channel called SF Succé. This gave the channel a content boost with several Swedish films. It also made TV1000 more able to compete with FilmNet which was the leading premium channel at the time.

The merger took place on 1 September 1991. The name of the merged channel was initially announced to be "TV1000 Succékanalen", but that never caught on.

As TV1000 was much larger than SF Succé, Kinnevik would own 75 percent of the new channel, while SF Succé's owners only owned 25 percent. When Kinnevik spun off their media division into the Modern Times Group in 1997, TV1000 wasn't included. Kinnevik were eventually able to buy out the rest of the owners, and TV1000 became a part of MTG in 2000.

In February 1995 a sister channel called TV1000 Cinema, or just "Cinema", launched. Cable distributors were initially hesitant to offer the new channel, which led MTG to close down another channel called FilmMax in November 1995 and trying to replace it with Cinema.

In 15 April 2000, when Viasat launched its digital platform, TV1000 and Cinema got two time-shift channels, each broadcasting the content with one- and two-hour delays.

On 1 September 2004 TV1000 had a major overhaul. Cinema and three of the time-shift channels closed down and were replaced by four themed movie channels. The line-up would then be TV1000, TV1000 Plus One (one hour time-shift of TV1000), TV1000 Family, TV1000 Action, TV1000 Nordic and TV1000 Classic.

In early 2008 TV1000 launched its first high-definition channel. It was called TV1000 HD and is a simulcast of the main TV1000 channel for the Nordic countries.

On 16 February 2009 an eighth TV1000 channel, TV1000 Drama, is launched in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. At the same time, the other TV1000 channels had their logos replaced by a new design.

The one-hour timeshift of the main TV1000 channel TV1000 Plus One was closed down on 1 August 2010.

On 2 January 2012 it was announced that the TV1000 channels will be rebranded as Viasat Film starting from 3 March 2012 in the Nordic region. TV1000 is still available in Central Europe as TV1000 East.

On April 23, 2014 changed Viasat in their lineup of movie channels, Viasat Film Nordic closed and was replaced by Viasat Film Comedy. The Nordic film will in future be included in the program on the other channels and Viasat Film Action and Viasat Film Classic was reduced transmission time and put forward only in the evening hours while closed to Viasat Film Drama HD. and Viasat Film Action HD began to simulcast with Nat Geo Wild HD in daytime on the Viasat satellite platform.

10 November 2015 changed Viasat back in their lineup of movie channels, Viasat Film Classic and Viasat Film Drama was closed down and replaced by Viasat Film Hits (Which will send new and classic film favorites) and Viasat Series (a pure serial channel with both new and classic series), also was changed during the program on other channels, it returned to again show series and children's programs as they did in the 90s under the brand TV1000, Viasat Film Family withdrawn children's programs from Disney Jr. daytime and Viasat Film Comedy began broadcasting classic comedy series in the daytime, also changed Viasat Film name to Viasat Film Premiere.

Transmission

TV1000 was previously transmitted using D2-MAC and encrypted with the EuroCrypt encryption system. It was available originally via the Astra 1A satellite, and later via the Intelsat 707 satellite (where TV1000 Cinema was also available via the co-located Thor satellite). It was largely descrambled throughout Europe with pirate cards, especially popular in the UK for its English language films and late-night hardcore pornography. Today, the Scandinavian version of Viasat Film is transmitted digitally and encrypted in the VideoGuard system (after previously using the Viaccess system that was widely hacked) within the Viasat package on the Astra 4A satellite.

Film rights

As of 2011, Viasat Film has first-run rights with Sony Pictures Entertainment, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Universal Studios, Summit Entertainment, The Weinstein Company and Lionsgate.

International broadcast

Initially, the channel was only available in Scandinavia. In March 2003, TV1000 East began targeting the Baltic countries, Russia and other Eastern European countries. A channel broadcasting only Russian movies called TV1000 Russkoe Kino (ТВ1000 Русское Кино) was launched in October 2005. TV1000 Balkan, a version targeting the Balkan countries, was launched in 2006. The fourth TV1000 to launch in Eastern Europe is TV1000 Poland, launched in early 2007 on the Cyfrowy Polsat platform.

In April 2008 a premium movie channel for the Baltic states called TV1000 Premium was launched. On 1 September 2008 TV1000 Action East was launched in Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

TV1000 is also available in Romania, being broadcast by RCS&RDS, Next-Gen and other major cable and DTH providers.

Current

  • Viasat Film Action (formerly TV1000 Action)
  • Viasat Film Comedy (formerly TV1000 Nordic and Viasat Film Nordic)
  • Viasat Film Family (formerly TV1000 Family)
  • Viasat Film Hits (formerly TV1000 Classic and Viasat Film Classic)
  • Viasat Film Premiere (formerly TV1000, TV1000 1 and Viasat Film)
  • Former

  • Cinema 1 (replaced by TV1000 Action)
  • Cinema 2 (timeshift service +1 of Cinema 1; replaced by TV1000 Nordic)
  • Cinema 3 (timeshift service +2 of Cinema 1; replaced by TV1000 Classic)
  • TV1000 2 (timeshift service +1 of TV1000 1; replaced by TV1000 Plus One)
  • TV1000 3 (timeshift service +2 of TV1000 1; replaced by Viasat Film Family)
  • TV1000 Plus One (timeshift service +1 of TV1000)
  • References

    Viasat Film Wikipedia