Cable Universal (Chile)

Cable Universal (officially Cable Universal SpA) is a Chilean telecommunications company of origin. It provides cable and satellite television services (HFC and DTH), IPTV, fixed and mobile telephony, fiber optics and Internet access nationwide. In addition to their main activities, they owned a long-distance carrier (765) that was discontinued in 2013, a video-on-demand service (Club VOD), a streaming platform with content from the channels on the platform (UniPlay), in addition to having exclusive channels such as UniSports (in addition to signals 2, Premium 1, 2 and 3), local channels such as TV Lagos and Temucovisión, and a future music channel called UniMusic.

Since June 2, 2011, its property has been 100% owned by the US group Postcom Enterprises, Inc.; until that date the company simply operated independently.

In June 2022, the company began offering an offer for new customers, which consists in the fact that if cable TV is contracted after this date, HFC (cable) and DTH (satellite) services are included, however, for customers old are offered a discount of 45% of the contracted plans.

Pre-history
It was originally born in 1997 as a small cable provider with about 15 channels (not counting national channels) under the name of La Caja Televisiva. However, it was not very successful, only lasting 10 months in operation.

Cable Universal and its beginnings
In mid-2001, the original founders of La Caja Televisiva decided to meet to launch a new cable television service under another name. Finally, Universal Cable was officially founded on October 3, 2001 as an analog cable operator that had 30 channels (not counting the national ones) and some premium channels.

On December 20, 2002, The Weather Channel Latin America ceased its broadcasts (obviously by decision of the channel itself), so on January 1, 2003 its space was taken over by the Venezuelan channel Globovisión (currently unavailable).

On May 24, 2006, Magic Kids ended its broadcasts by Pramer's decision, so since June 1, 2006 Disney Channel became a basic channel occupying the old space of Magic, while the VH1 Latino channel was integrated into the old Disney frequency.

In the middle of 2006 a new package of channels called digital expansion and the launch of a new product called Uni-Box (a digital decoder) began to be promoted. These novelties arrived on September 27, 2006, with new channels that at that time were new in Latin America (or more specifically in Chile).

Acquisition of Satellicom in Chile and subsequent relaunch
In May 2007 Cable Universal announced the acquisition of the operations of the company Satellicom in Chile (which had already announced its cessation of operations in South America), so that in mid-2007 Satellicom was absorbed by Cable Universal, becoming the service DTH of the last.

Reorganization of the channel grid
In August 2007 the channel grid (both analog and digital) was completely reorganized, adding several new channels to the digital package, moving some analog channels to the digital package and vice versa, among other things.

As of May 2008, HD channels began to be launched in what was then called the Expansion HD package.

In January 2010, CNN Chile and Canal 24 Horas joined the channel grid, causing a minor reorganization.

Takeover by Postcom and acquisition of Bellphone
In December 2010 Postcom began negotiations to acquire the operations of Cable Universal, which was completed on June 2, 2011.

In June 2012, Cable Universal began negotiations with the Bellphone company to absorb it and turn it into a division of Cable Universal itself called Unifono. The acquisition process was finalized on May 23, 2013 and the absorption was completed on July 1 of the same year, that same day the long distance carrier (765) was discontinued thanks to the fact that Bellphone had a single rate for nationwide calls.

On November 4, 2013, Utilisima and Fox Life became Fox Life and Mundofox respectively, however a few days later Cable Universal changed the channels back to their original frequencies.

As of January 2014, Cable Universal releases some HD channels for broadcast without the need for the Uni-Box, unlike VTR (whose channels of this style work with the ASTC standard) the channels can be tuned with the ISDB- t.

On November 3, 2014 Moviecity became Fox+, so a freepass was offered, however Universal Cable extended the offer by offering the package at 50% for 3 months if you subscribed during November.

In December 2014, the channel grid was reorganized again "organizing it by thematic neighborhoods" in both analog and digital (except HD). In June 2015, the HD channel grid was reorganized, also organizing it by thematic neighborhoods, and new HD channels were added.

On March 3, 2016, the Venezuelan channel Globovisión was removed from the channel grid due to problems between the channel and the cable operator. Globovisión was replaced by the TV Peru Internacional channel.

In June 2017, a new batch of HD channels was added, in addition the Mundofox HD channel was moved along with the children's channels due to the upcoming relaunch of the channel to Nat Geo Kids.

In December 2017, the design of the EPG was changed from Rovi to TiVo.

On January 1, 2019, the HBO Plus and Max Prime channels (West signals) stopped broadcasting by decision of HBO.

In May 2019 Cable Universal announces the launch of an OTT platform for its television service, which was launched in August of the same year, currently you can see the channel grid of the HFC and DTH services.

On April 30, 2020 Sundance TV stops broadcasting, being replaced by the A3Cine channel, on July 31 of the same year Capital TV stops broadcasting without a replacement, on August 5 MTV Hits is replaced by its European signal, on August 31 On August 14 Vh1 MegaHits is replaced by NickMusic, on September 14 Nick 2 and Nicktoons are replaced by TeenNick and on October 7 VH1 is replaced by its European network.

On November 3, 2021, the Via X, Zona Latina and ARTV channels are incorporated in HD thanks to an agreement with TVI Filmocentro.

On February 1, 2022, the channels of the Star Premium package cease their transmissions, being replaced by the Universal+ package. On April 1, 2022, the Star Life, Nat Geo Kids, Nat Geo Wild, Disney XD and FXM channels close their broadcasts, being replaced by Sony Movies, ZooMoo, Love Nature, DreamWorks Channel and D Película respectively.

On April 11, 2022, the grid is reorganized again after almost 8 years so that it has a coherent order, the reorganization was complete, from analog channels, through the digital grid, to HD channels.

On July 1, 2022, Mega Fiction is added on the occasion of the S.O.S. In addition to incorporating the CNBC channel on July 11.