Home Box Office

:For alternate meanings of "HBO", see HBO (disambiguation).

Captain Midnight Attacks

Controversy erupted in the cable programming world in the mid-1980s as cable operators began scrambling their programming and charging fees to home satellite dishowners who accessed the same satellite signals cable operators received. Many satellite dishowners 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 dishowners were often higher than fees paid by cable subscribers, despite dishowners being responsible for owning and servicing their own equipment.

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

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

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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. The text message which appeared on the sets of HBO subscribers across the Eastern time zone:

Related Topics:
April 27 - 1986 - Ocala, Florida - Pee-wee's Big Adventure - Galaxy 1 - Satellite - The Falcon and the Snowman

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GOODEVENING HBO

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FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT

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$12.95/MONTH?

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NO WAY!

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(SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE)

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MacDougall chose the name "Captain Midnight" from a movie he had recently seen, On the Air Live with Captain Midnight. After media pressure forced the Federal Communications Commission to act, MacDougall was charged and plea bargained a $5,000 fine and was placed on one year's probation.

Related Topics:
Captain Midnight - Federal Communications Commission

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