Fergie's Tech Blog

27 April 1986: Captain Midnight Hijacks HBO's Satellite

Controversy erupted in the cable programming world in the mid-1980s as cable operators began scrambling their programming and charging fees to home satellite dish owners who accessed the same satellite signals cable operators received. Many satellite dish owners were forced to purchase descrambling equipment at a cost of hundreds of dollars in addition to paying monthly or annual subscription fees to cable programming providers. Programming costs for home dish owners were often higher than fees paid by cable subscribers, despite dish owners being responsible for owning and servicing their own equipment.

When HBO scrambled its signal, it offered subscriptions to home dish owners for $12.95 per month, which was either equal to or slightly higher than what cable subscribers paid. Dish owners felt they were being asked to pay a price that was designed to be anti-competitive, and it triggered a national movement among dish owners to more strongly regulate the cable industry and force them to stop anti-competitive pricing.

While some dish owners called their elected officials, others took a more direct approach to send a message to the large industry.

On the evening of April 27, 1986 at 12:32am John R. MacDougall, a satellite TV dealer in Ocala, Florida was working at Central Florida Teleport, a company that uplinks services to satellites. He was overseeing the uplink of the movie Pee-wee's Big Adventure. At the end of his shift he swung the dish back in to its storage position pointing directly upward which happened to be the location of Galaxy 1, the satellite that carries HBO. As a protest against the introduction of high fees and scrambling equipment he transmitted a signal onto the satellite which overrode HBO's airing of The Falcon and the Snowman.

posted by Fergie @ 4/26/2006 10:01:00 PM