+- TV Live Forum (https://www.tvliveforum.com)
+-- Forum: TV Live Forum (https://www.tvliveforum.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=4)
+--- Forum: Presentation (https://www.tvliveforum.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=5)
+--- Thread: Music video channel memories (/showthread.php?tid=1291)
Pages:
1
2
Music video channel memories - Love 90s - 28-07-2022
When I was a toddler on my analogue cable system, there was a music channel called The Box that played videos requested by viewers. It was fun watching non stop late 1995-mid 1997 with the highlight being the Spice Girls first video Wannabe.
After 18 months a lull in being watching the channel religiously, I started watching again when they were playing Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston's When You Believe as well as starting to watch MTV. I wish When You Believe was playing on MTV and The Box to death bit they mostly dropped it like hot potato after January 1999. The signs that they moved away from playing that song when MTV and The Box changed logos that year.
RE: Music video channel memories - johnnyboy - 28-07-2022
I remember being transfixed in the very early 2000s when I dialled a hit in for my then girlfriend on The Box and the numbers I was pressing appeared on the telly at the same time.
Sounds absolutely primitive now!
RE: Music video channel memories - Bennyboy84 - 28-07-2022
RE: Music video channel memories - Omnipresent - 28-07-2022
I remember in the early days of The Box in the UK the picture quality wasn't great because their playout system was NTSC.
RE: Music video channel memories - James2001 - 28-07-2022
Could spend forever talking about the late 90s/early 00s incarnation of The Box. I admit I'd love to see some of their "programmes" from the era again... if they even still exist.
RE: Music video channel memories - LI4M - 28-07-2022
Does anybody remember the name of the (ever so stable) software that The Box (and its family of channels) ran on during the EMAP era? (before they became more polished?) Think RaptureTV used the same playout software too.
Pretty sure a demo of it was freely downloadable for a while also.
RE: Music video channel memories - Larry the Loafer - 28-07-2022
Ahh those early cable days. I remember telling my whole school we were getting the Disney Channel (I was 5, forgive me) only to come home and find out we didn't have it because it cost extra.
Not only did my Disney woes get quickly swept away by Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon, but that triple threat of MTV, VH1 and The Box will live long in my memory. In fact, I have a very peculiar memory of asking my older sister why the VH1 logo in the corner changed one day. I wonder if that's what set me off with this strange interest in TV pres...
The amount of Box material that's archived on YouTube always felt pretty limited. But jeez, seeing that Boxfresh sting for the first time in many many years gave me one hell of a nostalgiagasm. And don't get me started on Breakin' Out on The Box (that's what it was called, wasn't it). My young brain, which still hadn't really grasped the idea of computer animation (and at that point, still thought Bugs Bunny really did play basketball with Michael Jordan) was always equally intimidated and fascinated by that crate bouncing about everywhere.
RE: Music video channel memories - James2001 - 28-07-2022
One thing I remember about Box Tops (the top 10 most selected songs that week) is that they had this American bloke who always sounded ridiciulously over the top cheerful. Then one week in early 1999 he sounded really miserable and I wondered if he'd been sacked... and indeed he never did it again after that.
The Box was the only music channel we had in our analogue cable package (bar the couple of months they had MTV and UK Play as the "guest channel"), so it was the only one I was able to watch regularly until we got digital, and as a result, I watched it a lot.
One thing I remember about The Box is how frequently it was that songs got lots of airplay on there that barely even made a dent in the charts (indeed, some that never even hit the top 40 being on regular rotation) which used to confuse me. Looking back I'm realising that was probably down to people in the record labels regularly requesting said songs to try and get them some publicity. For example, "Jump" by Bus Stop was in the Box Tops top 10 for absolutely ages, but only reached the heights of 23 in the actual chart- and similarly their version of "Get It On" (notable for the video inserting Daz Sampson into old TOTP footage of T-Rex) also got lots of airplay (in fact I'm pretty sure that reached the Box Tops top 10 as well) but only reached 59!
There was also a strange period where Changes by 2Pac suddenly got a surge in requests- also getting back into the top 10- after several months of barely being played at all (they actually removed it from the playlist at this point- which does make me think there was something dodgy behind the song's sudden resurgence. Which meant we had the bizarre situation of the song appearing on box tops, but you couldn't ring up and select it).
RE: Music video channel memories - LI4M - 28-07-2022
MTV during this era was on top form also.
Loved the onscreen look, complete with the top-right wireframe MTV dog.
Programming including MTV Select, MTV Bitesize, Spanking New Music and stuff like Daria and Singled Out.
I really loved the simplicity of the white song title straps and their basic blinds animation.
I also seem to remember being fascinated by the little crawl/ticker graphic they had had for promoting upcoming programmes. I could never understand why they would stay on the screen totally blank for upwards of 30 seconds after the promo message had finished scrolling.
RE: Music video channel memories - James2001 - 28-07-2022
Sadly we didn't have MTV at that point in time- apart from the month it was NTL's "guest channel" anyway, and indeed from what I saw that month, it was a very good channel back then, with a decent mix of videos and music related programming. Sadly it's a long time since any music channel has offered anything remotely similar. MTV stopped playing music, and the other channels are basically just strings of videos, the days of proper programming and presenters being long gone.
RE: Music video channel memories - Bennyboy84 - 28-07-2022
RE: Music video channel memories - Motlash - 28-07-2022
Why yes, I do blame MTV channels in the early 2000s as a contributing factor for being into TV mechanics - got some VHS tapes with hours of 120 Minutes/MTV2 countdowns and Gonzo that could do with digitising:
MTV promo for 120 Minutes, I want to say around 2003:
https://youtu.be/ZeTMXpcgJIg
MTV2 circa 2000:
https://youtu.be/wA2QHS4-NG8
One of a variety of 'edit a band interview to make them say MTV2 a lot' idents, this has Coldplay:
https://youtu.be/9r515nSbjR8
RE: Music video channel memories - Mateus Honrado - 29-07-2022
I remember when the good old days of The Hits and TMF before they were rebranded as 4Music and Viva respectively.
The Hits continuity from July 2006.
https://youtu.be/AmJ9tSQWTcI
TMF UK continuity from October 7, 2008.
https://youtu.be/n4HfzIwbDyc
RE: Music video channel memories - Bennyboy84 - 29-07-2022
I remember when i racked up a huge phone bill requesting videos on The Box because our cable company were not very communicative when it discontinued the deal it had with being able to call and request videos for free. I was unaware of this until it was too late!
RE: Music video channel memories - Steve in Pudsey - 29-07-2022
I remember the days of the NTL (ex Bell Cable Media) Community Channel.
A glorified PowerPoint presentation accompanied by Radio Aire