WFBN-TV 66 Joliet/Chicago Spectrum Pay TV sign on 1983

@PhirePhlame 2 years ago

I love how they do the first continuity before they start the encrypted broadcast, like "oh by the way here's exactly what you non-subscribers are gonna miss and exactly when you'll miss it"

@plushifoxed 5 years ago

god, the music over the days schedule is absolutely lovely

@MsSissiePooh 1 year ago

Spectrum was the first pay-tv service we had, and they had all of the really good movies, including international films. They would broadcast 24/7 on the weekends, which was a lot of fun.

@Alphahydro 4 years ago

This is good stuff. I don’t even know if the magnitude of this clip is realized. Definitely takes you back to simpler times.

@3ccdmike 1 year ago

Thank you Chuck. This is the spectrum we had in Minneapolis in the early 80' it was this or HBO and there was no cable in the ground at that time. Both HBO and SPECTRUM were transmitted over the air. HBO had a small dish and SPECTRUM had a UHF antenna.

@timharper73 5 years ago

This is great to see this after all these years! Great find! BTW from seeing the Spectrum promo description for the June preview for NEXT MONTH this recording was probably made sometime in the month of May 1983. By 1984 WFBN had dropped Spectrum and was airing music videos as "Music 66".

@kargaroc386 4 years ago

One of the all-time classic youtube videos (was probably originally posted in 2007)

@Bort_Simpson 2 months ago

I called the number and the woman who answered wasn’t happy I asked for Spectrum

@syferdet 3 months ago

1:45 "Leon Isaac Kennedy is a man who struggles to overcome many obstacles in this drama" Written by an 8th grader who gave his book report in front of the class without actually reading the book.

@Mistertbones 1 month ago

Channel 66 happened to air Bob Luce's Chicago Challenge Wrestling in 1989 and 1990, long after Spectrum was gone.

@CrowTRobot-ni7zu 5 years ago

Nice to see this video back. Cool looking service.

@wow77777 2 years ago

Gumball Rally was the Cannonball Run before the Cannonball Run

@franktillman295 9 months ago

I remember watching all that late night porn that was scrambled here in the Twin Cities at that time!

@altfactor 2 years ago

It appears that WFBN was only broadcasting unscrambled programming for just four hours a day (5-9 A.M. CST/CDT). I believe that later in 1983, the FCC even dropped the rule requiring over-the-air pay-TV stations to even broadcast any unscrambled programming, so WFBN and other pay-TV stations were able, to broadcast scrambled Pay-TV programming 24/7 if they wanted.