Coventry Cable Television Promo, 1993

My thanks to Morgana for finding this

I remember having an interview for a transmission engineer vacancy at Coventry Cable. I had recently been made redundant so was desperate for another job and at the time it was well known that Coventry Cable had financial problems. I went to the interview and the only question I was asked was if I knew what decibels are, I did and so was almost offered the job there and then especially whe they realised I lived close by. I was also told that as part of the job I would get free cable until I pointed out that my area hadn't been cabled . As the "interview" progressed and I was shown round I decided I didn't want the job (CC's financial problems and the fact that I didn't particularly like the person who interviewed me and who would be my direct boss) being the two main factors. Fortunately the next day I was offered a job I had been interviewed for a couple of weeks previously and really wanted - in fact I'm still there now over 20 years later

When did this service run?

From the mid 80`s till the early / mid 90`s. Much of the cable distribution side was carried out and maintained by BT. From memory it was eventually taken over by Virgin and basically it was superceded by Sky Tv.

We had a visit from the Cable rep and we thought that we might sign up to it. I asked the rep if he could leave me a copy of his brochure so we could see what we were getting for our money. He said that he was only given one and that we couldn't have it. Then he seemed surprised that we said no thank you.

A blast from the past. I and some other students at Coventry University made a few 'what's on' programmes for Coventry Cable. It was called 'The Scene' and we made 7 or 8 of them. I have fond memories since we got to do a shed load of things students could only dream of. We filmed bungee jumping, helicopter flying, human bowling, Drayton Manor, steam train driving, jet skiing, race car driving, paint balling and a few others I've forgotten. I probably still have some of the VHS tapes somewhere. Happy days!

This was probably about the time I signed up. I'd planned to a year earlier but when a guy knocked at the door selling it, he was so annoying I sent him away. It wasn't a bad service. Then it changed hands and when I tried to quit, the new company kept billing me for about six months after they even agreed over the phone I'd stopped being a customer. Finally I blocked the direct debit and they sent a bailiffs letter! I was furious and rang Coventry radio - oooh, can't remember the consumer show - named after the guy presenting it. Anyway after a little chat on the air I got profuse apologies and the billing stopped immediately.