In March 2009, when Party Girls came to the end of it’s run on Babe Channel 46. The Babestation girls who had become so popular on the freeview night show schedule were suddenly a lot more problematic for the non-freeview viewer to find. They would continue to appear on Party People’s 3am show but that was a very late…or perhaps early start depending on your point of view. And since Party People was still classed as a day show, it was a much different proposition from Party Girls. Not even the introduction of Partyland could make up for the loss of Party Girls. Through Party Girls, viewers had got to know Babestation’s most scintillating girls and they wanted them back! Even to the point where some Freeview guys subscribed to SKY simply to see those Babestation live babes again.
Within a few weeks of the end of Party Girls, terrestrial viewers had been promised a full version of Babestation. Not a low-bandwidth version with a makeshift set like the CH46 show, where the girl’s movements would become pixillated because the bit rate couldn’t cope. No tiny viewing window or oversized graphics, this was going to be a full-screen broadcast, shot on the spacious, premium set, with all the trappings, the video insets, the works. This was not going to be Babestation lite, running under an alias in a basement – this was going to be Babestation. Babestation 1.
Duly, on a very, very windy Tuesday 12th May 2009, a new babe channel appeared on the
Freeview EPG. Bearing the recognisable name of Smile TV2 (same as the former Channel 46), Channel 33 was ready to go, and despite the fact that no listings were showing, the fun was about to start…
Just after midnight on 13th May, the full version of Babestation finally premiered on Freeview. And opening this new babeshow? It could only be the Babestation It-girl who’d still been on the mic saying goodbye to Channel 46 viewers when the closing graphics routine abruptly cut in to end Party Girls two months earlier: the one and only Donna Duke. Joining Donna on the historic broadcast were Geri, and Megan Moore.
The Babestation Freeview show’s first opening sequence. The video featured Donna Duke, Jemma Jey, Camilla Jayne, Morgan Preece and Dionne Mendez (in that order), and it remained in place at the beginning of Babestation 1’s Freeview portion until late August ‘09.
(See more of these hot old school babes also seen on Sexstation, Red Light Central, Xpanded and Studio 66, by joining the Babestation VIP members area)
Another big difference of note was the the 4:3 screen format, as opposed to 16:9 Widescreen, which didn’t properly arrive until a month later, on 10th June. I say ‘properly’, because it looks like Babestation tried to implement Widescreen from the night of 3rd to 4th June. However, whilst the dimensions of the screen were amended, the actual source frame remained in 4:3, so for nearly a week the picture was horizontally stretched, and that didn’t flatter the babes at all.
There’s now a major expansion on this post, looking (with more pics) at the first night and the ensuing weeks. You’ll find it in Babestation 1 on Freeview: The First Month.
[…] was to run the babe channel purely as a sales hub, with the telephone number on screen accessing Babestation 1 (on Option 1), Babestation 2 (on Option 2), and Partyland (on Option 3) – but providing viewers […]
[…] adult phone chat calls, often without heavy graphics. There was a much more relaxed feel than on Babestation 1, with its very intensive selling and ingrained stop/start dynamics. It still baffles me to this day […]