(27-07-2022, 08:46 PM)Ben Wrote:(27-07-2022, 07:49 PM)Kojak Wrote: I remember that! I don't remember the Wellbeing channel (don't think it was ever on cable, was it?) but I definitely do remember the wellbeing.com URL. A quick Wayback Machine search suggests it remained in use until April 2003, at which point it began to redirect to boots.com.
I seem to remember the boots.com url was owned by a car garage company or similar so the domain wasn't nessercerily a direct tie in with the TV channel. Did Wellbeing TV replace Shop! Or am I mis-remembering?
You are correct, except it was an ISP that owned the domain:
https://web.archive.org/web/200102261459...boots.com/
By 2002 Boots the chemist had gotten hold of the address, and of course a year later wellbeing.com began to redirect to it.
Quote:Carlton Food Network rebranded as TasteCFN when it tied up with Sainsburys I dint think that lasted long.
About six months. Quite a lot of programmes on there that have never been repeated since, including a couple of Alan Coxon programmes, and a celebrity cooking show called Can't Stand the Heat, hosted by Anna Maria Ashe (of London Tonight fame).
(27-07-2022, 08:57 PM)Aplus1 Wrote:(27-07-2022, 06:53 PM)telebox2001 Wrote: That's the first I've heard about it. Ah, the interactive card. Wonder what was the initial idea?
Part of the early financing for the Sky digital boxes, because they were new and terribly expensive, was that they were heavily subsidised by the "Open..." consortium who were hoping that these set top boxes would become a major gateway for home banking, online shopping, etc.
As such the 'interactive' card slot was intended to be Mondex compatible (i.e. chip-and-pin long before they called it that) and backers like HSBC and others each contributed what became known as the 'interactive discount' which brought the cost of a Sky digital box down to something which people were hopefully more able to afford and more likely to be interested in. (This is also a large part of the reason why people were expected/required to keep their box attached to the telephone line - so that the convenient on-screen interactive services would be easy to discover and use without any friction.)
Do you remember the keyboards that came out alongside digital satellite and cable?
https://www.picclickimg.com/d/l400/pict/...71-00F.jpg
I remember that much like Sky, Telewest hoped to become a hub for online shopping and so forth. I was a bit young, so never used anything like that myself, but I do remember my grandad had a Telewest keyboard. Sky made one as well:
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/OwkAAOSwC...-l1600.jpg