Bravo (Canada)

Bravo (styled bravo) is a Canadian English language Category A cable and satellite specialty channel that is owned by Bell Media. Bravo maintains an entertainment format, with a particular focus on television dramas and films.

The channel was founded as a Canadian version of the U.S. channel Bravo (which is now owned by NBCUniversal). However, the channels have since diverged from a focus on the arts; Bravo in the U.S. was relaunched with an emphasis on fashion and pop culture programming in 2003, while Bravo in Canada began to add more dramatic series to its lineup beginning in 2006. Aside from still airing programming such as Inside the Actors Studio, a 2012 rebranding effectively separated the Canadian Bravo from its American counterpart.

History

In the 1980s, a precursor to Bravo existed called C Channel. The service was a national commercial-free pay television channel that focused on arts programming. C Channel launched on February 1, 1983 before it went bankrupt and ceased operations five months later on June 30 of that year due to its inability to attract a sufficient number of subscribers at a price of $16 per month.

Bravo (UK TV channel)

Bravo was a British television channel, owned by Living TV Group, a subsidiary of BSkyB. Its target audience was males in their 20s to early 40s and it showed a variety of both archive programming (such as Knight Rider and MacGyver) and original productions.

The Bravo channel closed on 1 January 2011, its most popular programmes moved to other Sky channels including: Spartacus: Blood and Sand (now on Sky1), Chuck, Leverage (now on Fox), Dog the Bounty Hunter (now on Pick), Star Trek (now on CBS Action), TNA Wrestling (now on Challenge), Sun, Sea and A&E, Motorway Patrol, Highway Patrol, Brit Cops and Caribbean Cops (now on Pick and Sky Livingit).

History

Bravo was launched on December 31, 1985, as a cable only channel, created by United Artists Programming and broadcasting mainly black & white B-movies from the 1950s and 1960s. Initially, the channel was a cassette-delivered service delivered to cable headends for automatic play-out.

In 1991, United Artists merged with their largest shareholder TCI (now Liberty Media), to form the largest cable operator in the US. TCI and US West announced a joint venture, and in 1992, the joint venture company became Telewest Communications. In 1993, talks were held with Tele-Communications Inc. which resulted in Flextech acquiring TCI's European programming business in exchange for shares. By January, the deal was complete with TCI, which allowed TCI to acquire 60.4% of Flextech while Flextech acquired 100% of Bravo, 25% of UK Gold, 31% of UK Living, and 25% of the Children's Channel which increased its share in that channel.

Bravo (U.S. TV network)

Bravo Media, LLC, more commonly known as Bravo, is an American basic cable and satellite television network and flagship channel, launched on December 1, 1980. It is owned by NBCUniversal and headquartered in the Comcast Building in New York City. The channel originally focused on programming related to fine arts and film; it currently broadcasts several reality television series targeted at females ages 25 through 54, acquired dramas, and mainstream theatrically-released feature films.

As of July 2015, approximately 90,891,000 American households (78.1% of households with television) receive Bravo.

History

Bravo originally launched as a commercial-free premium channel on December 1, 1980. It was originally co-owned by Cablevision's Rainbow Media division and Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment; the channel claimed to be "the first television service dedicated to film and the performing arts". The channel originally broadcast its programming two days a week and—like Bravo's former sister network Nickelodeon, which shared its channel space with Alpha Repertory Television Service—shared its channel space with the adult-oriented pay channel Escapade, which featured softcore pornographic films. In 1981, Bravo was available to 48,000 subscribers throughout the United States; this total increased four years later to around 350,000 subscribers. A 1985 profile of Bravo in The New York Times observed that most of its programming consisted of international, classic, and independent film. Celebrities such as E. G. Marshall and Roberta Peters provided opening and closing commentary to the films broadcast on the channel.

Saudia Flight 163

Saudia Flight 163 was a scheduled passenger flight of Saudia that caught fire after takeoff from Riyadh International Airport (now the Riyadh Air Base) on a flight to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, 19 August 1980. All 287 passengers and 14 crew on board the Lockheed L-1011-200 TriStar, registration HZ-AHK, died after the aircraft made an emergency landing back at the Riyadh airport.

At the time, the accident was the second deadliest single aircraft disaster in history, after Turkish Airlines Flight 981. It's the sixth deadliest aircraft disaster overall, after the Tenerife airport disaster, Japan Airlines Flight 123, the Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision, Turkish Airlines Flight 981, and Air India Flight 182. It was also the highest death toll of any aviation accident in Saudi Arabia and the highest death toll of any accident involving a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar anywhere in the world. It is also the deadliest aviation disaster that did not involve a crash on impact or mid-flight break up.

Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision

The Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision occurred on 12 November 1996 over the village of Charkhi Dadri, to the west of New Delhi, India. The aircraft involved were a Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747-100B en route from Delhi to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and a Kazakhstan Airlines Ilyushin Il-76 en route from Chimkent, Kazakhstan, to Delhi. The crash killed all 349 people on board both planes, making it the world's deadliest mid-air collision, the deadliest aviation accident to occur in India, and the third-deadliest aircraft accident in the history of aviation, behind only the Tenerife airport disaster and Japan Airlines Flight 123.

Collision

The Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) Boeing 747-168B, registration HZ-AIH, was due to operate the first leg of a scheduled international Delhi–Dhahran–Jeddah passenger service as Flight 763 (SVA763) with 312 occupants on board; the Kazakhstan Airlines Ilyushin Il-76TD, registration UN-76435, was on a charter service from Chimkent to Delhi as KZA1907. SVA763 departed Delhi at 18:32 local time. KZA1907 was, at the same time, descending to land at Delhi. Both flights were controlled by approach controller VK Dutta. The crew of SVA763 consisted of Captain Khalid Al Shubaily, First Officer Nazir Khan, and Flight Engineer Edris. On KZA1907, Gennadi Cherepanov served as the pilot and Egor Repp served as the radio operator.