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- Star Choice History -
Star Choice
is currently Canada's second largest direct to home satellite
service, delivering 300+ channels to over 870 000 subscribers in Canada via a small 24" satellite dish antenna and set top receiver.
Early History
Star Choice was originally incorporated in 1996 as Star Choice Television Network, a subsidiary of Direct Choice, a small distributor of satellite components in Eastern Canada. The founding president was Greg Walling, who shared a dream of becoming the first Canadian direct to home satellite service. Two competing companies, Expressvu Inc. and Power Directv Inc. had been licensed a year previous by the CRTC, but had not been successful in actually bringing an operational service to the Canadian market. Star Choice had recognized the immediate need for a Canadian service, as tens of thousands of Canadians were opting to purchase a grey market satellite system for the U.S. Directv and Dish Network services.
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The company was based in New Brunswick, Canada and had ambitious plans for the Canadian market. What they lacked in size and corporate strength, they made up in spades with spirit as they would be competing head to head with Expressvu Inc., which was wholly owned by BCE, Canada's largest Telecommunication Company, a company with hundreds of millions in cash reserves.
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Clearly Canada was in desperate need of a digital satellite service
as most Canadians were tired of unfulfilled promises, as Expressvu had committed over half a dozen launch milestones which they had missed for a number of reasons from equipment problems to satellite capacity. For many Canadians, the grey market had become the only alternative, especially to those in rural areas which were not services by cable vision.
Star Choice's initial platform was to utilize the Canadian Anik E1 satellite to deliver 112 channels, which would include 52 Canadian and US video channels as well as 35 digital audio channels. They had also planned to offer an additional 25 U.S. CRTC approved channels from the Dish Network satellites, which at the time was seen as ambitious as no DBS provider had provided equipment that would receive feeds from 2 separate satellites on one small dish. They had entered into an agreement with Echostar, the parent company of the U.S. Dish Network satellite service to provide equipment for the Canadian DBS venture.
A Canadian DTH satellite license had been applied for in early 1996, which was finally granted by the CRTC at the end of August 1996. It had an initial projected launch milestone of last quarter of 1996. In March of 1996, the troubled Canadian Anik E1 satellite suffered a near total loss of its satellite capacity as one of its primary power systems had failed, leaving it crippled. This loss meant that there was no longer sufficient satellite capacity to allow 2 fully operational satellite services. One of the CRTC's primary conditions of license was that Canadian satellites must be used to deliver Canadian signals. It would allow US signals to be delivered via US satellites however.
The loss in capacity meant Starchoice would have to modify its initial programming offerings and push back its launch date. In early 1997, Star Choice and HomeStar, a wholly owned subsidiary of Shaw Communications began negotiations for a possible merger. HomeStar had recently received authorization from the CRTC to begin a DTH service in Canada, but had not yet put the infrastructure in place. A merger with meant they would be set for a much earlier entrance in the Canadian market. It also meant for a much needed source of financial backing from Shaw, which was one of Canada's largest cable vision companies. The merger was put before the CRTC and approved in May of 1997. It gave Shaw controlling interest in Star Choice. Show also had controlling interest in Cancom, which owned much need satellite capacity aboard the Anik E2 satellite. This gave Star Choice the capacity it needs to launch a full featured DTH service to the Canadian market. Shaw also made some equipment changes, abandoning the Echostar platform in favor of the Motorola Digicipher II platform, in use in the US by Primestar. Motorola is a recognized leader in consumer electronics.
Star Choice Launches
In late May, 1997, the Star Choice service went on the air and was officially launched. Ironically, it was one of the last companies in Canada to be awarded a license by the CRTC to commence a Canadian satellite broadcasting operation , yet it became the first company to actually fully launch a successful
service, beat only by the Alphastar Canada service, which would fail some months later.
Satellite Technology
Expressvu would also launch their service to Canadian in late summer of 1997, more than 2 1/2 years after they had been licensed. Initially, both Canadian services shared satellite capacity on the Anik E2 satellite. Expressvu would however move to a new DBS satellite, Nimiq 1 launched by Telesat in 1999. This would free up a large capacity for Star Choice to expand their service to better compete with Expressvu, which controlled nearly all of of the capacity on Nimiq 1. Star Choice was also able to aquire some capacity aboard the crippled Anik E1 satellite, which was scheduled for replacement in 2004 by a new Anik F2 satellite. Anik E2 was replaced by the successful launch of Anik F1 in 2000 at the Telesat 107.3° WL orbital location. This offered more broadcasting power at 115 watts per channel, more capacity with 48 active and 10 space Ku channels as well as 44 C band channels as well as a larger satellite footprint, covering virtually all of North America. The crippled Anik E1 satellite was also replaced by the new Anik F2 satellite at Telesat's 111.1° W.L. orbital location, launched in July 2004. Anik F1 developed power problems in obit due to a solar panel problem plaguing all Boeing 702 satellite designs and it was replaced with the successful launch of Anik F1R in September 2005. Anik F1R is a ASTRIUM E3000 design and carries a C/Ku-band as well as a GPS/Waas payload.
Star Choice Satellites at a Glance
- Anik F1R - 107.3° W.L.
- Anik F2 - 111.1° W.L.
Anik F1 satellite Footprint 107.3° W.L.
Anik F2 satellite Footprint 111.1° W.L.
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08/04/2008 11:20 AM
In order to give the website a better focus, we are phasing out the less popular areas of the site, including the high definition and digital video recorder areas and forums. This will leave the site focused on digital satellite television and satellite radio.
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