The History Of Pay Per View Demand

Pay per view is a system where a television viewer can purchase events that are telecast on TV and pay for it to privately air in their homes. When you purchase an event like this it is shown to everyone who orders it at the same exact time, but there is also an option known as pay per view demand. With pay per view demand, you can start the program or event you bought at any time you want. This is a nice feature because it allows you to tailor it to fit into your schedule instead of the other way around. Pay per view can be ordered using an on screen guide, an automated telephone system or with a live customer service representative. It is always nice to have the option to speak with a customer service representative because you can have any of your questions or concerns addressed right away. Although pay per view is offered through your local cable provider, it is actually considered a separate industry.

Pay per view gained its mainstream popularity mostly from sporting events. For the first time, it allowed fans to watch events that were broadcast all over the world without actually having to be there in person. The first major pay per view event took place on September 16, 1981 when Sugar Ray Leonard fought Thomas Hearns for the Welterweight Championship. A company in Nashville, Tennessee called Viacom Cablevision was the first one to offer this event and they sold more than 50% of their customers for the fight. This set quite a precedent for pay per view events in the future. They actually got Sugar Ray Leonard to visit Nashville to promote the fight which made the event such a huge success.

The term pay per view did not become widely used until the 1990s when companies like IN Demand, Showtime and HBO began using the system to broadcast their programs and movies. While boxing has always been one of the biggest things purchased through pay per view, concerts and show movies also became very popular. This is when the idea of offering pay per view demand came about because they saw an opportunity to capitalize on the popularity of pay per view. The only problem with the current pay per view system was that not everyone was available to view something at the same time. Pay per view demand gave viewers the ability to decide when they would watch a purchased event, which ultimately made subscribers much more satisfied.