# Whatever happened to SelecTV? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 21, 2004, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-selectv/265269 "2004-09-21T04:31:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2004, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-selectv/265269/1 "2004-09-21T04:31:40Z")
A web search did not satisfy my curiosity. Back in the late 70’s/early 80’s, there was a pay television service here (southeast Wisconsin) called “SelecTv”. What was really strange about it was this: it was broadcast over the air, _ **NOT** _ via cable. From, approximately 6a.m. until 7p.m. channel 24 out of Milwaukee broadcast as an independant station. It showed syndicated programs like Get Smart, I Dream of Jeannie, etc. (typical late 70’s fare). But at 7p.m. the signal was scrambled. If you paid for the descrambler box, you got to see first rate movies, and porn after 11. It was very strange. But one day, it vanished. I’m assuming it lost out to cable. It was really weird. I’m thinking most of you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. But if you do, tell me what you know. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2004, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-selectv/265269/2 "2004-09-21T05:02:06Z")
Their [service mark](http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=ik6v9q.2.9) was filed in 78, cancelled in 89. [No one in the US seems](http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=ik6v9q.1.1&p_search=searchss&p_L=50&BackReference=&p_plural=no&p_s_PARA1=&p_tagrepl%7E%3A=PARA1%24LD&expr=PARA1+AND+PARA2&p_s_PARA2=SelecTv&p_tagrepl%7E%3A=PARA2%24COMB&p_op_ALL=AND&a_default=search&a_search=Submit+Query&a_search=Submit+Query) to have been able to make a go of the term, although there is some [activity in Britain and France.](http://www.google.com/search?as_q=SelecTv&num=10&hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&safe=images) ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2004, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-selectv/265269/3 "2004-09-21T06:12:31Z")
SelecTV was out in Southern California too. Like many of those subscription services, they died out in the 1980s when cable became more prevalent. Out in L.A., we also had ON TV as well as the Z Channel ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2004, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-selectv/265269/4 "2004-09-21T06:37:30Z")
There’s something similar now, called [MovieBeam](http://www.moviebeam.com/index.jsp). It receives movies over the air, which you can then pay to watch. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2004, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-selectv/265269/5 "2004-09-21T06:49:33Z")
That’s not quite the same. SelecTV and ON TV would appear on a regular UHF channel and you didn’t get to choose what you wanted to watch. ---
**Author:** ![bughunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@bughunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bughunter)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2004, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-selectv/265269/6 "2004-09-22T00:13:23Z")
My parents had SelecTV in Sacramento in the late Eighties. More accurately, they lived in a condo with antenna service that had crappy reception of everything except SelecTV. It was like a train wreck: tragic, but you couldn’t help but watch. They ran _the same four movies_ over and over and over again for the entire month. Including the worst porno softcore edits you can ever imagine: the soundtrack remained intact, but rather than zoom, pan and scan to avoid full frontal nudity, they just looped the same 11 seconds of “safe” footage from any given sexual encounter scene. And by “safe,” I generally mean boobies only… nothing more. It was pathetic. We’d watch the first few days of the month, because they’d switch to new movies on the first. And then it was repetition hell with no escape. It was almost Nitzchean… I must have watched _Johnny Dangerously_ eleventy thousand times. \*It’s an eighty-eight magnum. It shoots through schools. It goes through armor, and through the victim, and through the wall, and through the tree outside. Fargin’ Icehole!\* Aaaugh! Get it out! Get it out! ---
**Author:** ![stochastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e19b73/32.png) [@stochastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stochastic)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2004, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-selectv/265269/7 "2004-09-22T03:16:27Z")
Ahh yes, I remember the early eighties as a horny adolescent, up late on the weekends watching the scrambled SelecTV channel, trying to catch a microsecond glimpse of a naked boobie. My buddies and I would make a game of it…kind of a porno “where’s Waldo”…trying to be the first to spot the some nekkidness. Usually, the most one could hope for was a distorted, blue-tinted mound and if you were really lucky, some nipplage. Kids these days don’t know how good they have it with the Internet 🙂