Viasat Film was started by Kinnevik on 27 August 1989 as TV1000, using one of the sixteen transponders on Astra 1A, the very first Astra satellite. In June 1991 TV1000 announced that they channel would merge with another pay movie channel called SF Succé. This gave the channel a content boost with several Swedish films. It also made TV1000 more able to compete with FilmNet which was the leading premium channel at the time. The merger took place on 1 September 1991. The name of the merged channel was initially announced to be "TV1000 Succékanalen", but that never caught on. As TV1000 was much larger than SF Succé, Kinnevik would own 75 percent of the new channel, while SF Succé's owners only owned 25 percent. When Kinnevik spun off their media division into the Modern Times Group in 1997, TV1000 wasn't included. Kinnevik were eventually able to buy out the rest of the owners, and TV1000 became a part of MTG in 2000. In February 1995 a sister channel called TV1000 Cinema, or just "Cinema", launched. Cable distributors were initially hesitant to offer the new channel, which led MTG to close down another channel called FilmMax in November 1995 and trying to replace it with Cinema. On 15 April 2000, when Viasat launched its digital platform, TV1000 and Cinema got two time-shift channels, each broadcasting the content with one- and two-hour delays. On 1 September 2004 TV1000 had a major overhaul. Cinema and three of the time-shift channels closed down and were replaced by four themed movie channels. The line-up would then be TV1000, TV1000 Plus One, TV1000 Family, TV1000 Action, TV1000 Nordic and TV1000 Classic. In early 2008 TV1000 launched its first high-definition channel. It was called TV1000 HD and is a simulcast of the main TV1000 channel for the Nordic countries. On 16 February 2009 an eighth TV1000 channel, TV1000 Drama, is launched in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. At the same time, the other TV1000 channels had their logos replaced by a new design. The one-hour timeshift of the main TV1000 channel TV1000 Plus One was closed down on 1 August 2010. On 2 January 2012 it was announced that the TV1000 channels will be rebranded as Viasat Film starting from 3 March 2012 in the Nordic region. TV1000 is still available in Central Europe as TV1000 East. On April 23, 2014 changed Viasat in their lineup of movie channels, Viasat Film Nordic closed and was replaced by Viasat Film Comedy. The Nordic film will in future be included in the program on the other channels and Viasat Film Action and Viasat Film Classic was reduced transmission time and put forward only in the evening hours while closed to Viasat Film Drama HD. and Viasat Film Action HD began to simulcast with Nat Geo Wild HD in daytime on the Viasat satellite platform. 10 November 2015 changed Viasat back in their lineup of movie channels, Viasat Film Classic and Viasat Film Drama was closed down and replaced by Viasat Film Hits and Viasat Series, also was changed during the program on other channels, it returned to again show series and children's programs as they did in the 90s under the brand TV1000, Viasat Film Family withdrawn children's programs from Disney Jr. daytime and Viasat Film Comedy began broadcasting classic comedy series in the daytime, also changed Viasat Film name to Viasat Film Premiere. In 2018 the TV department of MTG was split off into Nordic Entertainment Group.
Transmission
TV1000 was previously transmitted using D2-MAC and encrypted with the EuroCrypt encryption system. It was available originally via the Astra 1A satellite, and later via the Intelsat 707 satellite. Today, the Scandinavian version of Viasat Film is transmitted digitally and encrypted in the VideoGuard system within the Viasat package on the Astra 4A satellite.
