The story
Wowow ran a 24-hour test broadcast titled "A Japan-US Two-Way Call-in Show: Space TV Will Change the World" (日米双方向コール・イン・ショー 宇宙テレビが世界を変える) on November 29, 1990, then initiated 12 to 14 hours per day of pre-launch broadcasts the following day. Scrambled programs started airing in February 1991, and regular analog broadcasting began on April 1. One of the channel's first events was investing US$2 million in the filming of The Will Rogers Follies alongside Hollywood producer Pierre Cossette. The goal of the co-production was to bring in more subscribers to the channel, as well as finding a launch hit.
By 1992, Wowow had 800,000 subscribers. At the time, foreign feature films, mainly American, made up 40% of its schedule, and had US actor Harrison Ford as its spokesman. One of its earliest hits was the cult US series Twin Peaks, having aired several cycles of all 28 episodes by July 1992, and was responsible for nearly 30% of new subscriptions.
The network entered fiscal 1993 accumulating a debt of 40 million yen, accused on poor management, and causing delays to the launch of four private competitors.
Digital broadcasting began on December 1, 2000. The network began with 207,753 subscribers (31.5 billion yen in sales), growing to 2,667,414 two years later (64.5 billion yen in sales). As of December 2011, Wowow claimed approximately 2.56 million subscribers to its digital service. On July 24, 2011, Wowow shut down its analog signals.
Previously, Wowow's headquarters were in another facility in Akasaka.
On October 1, 2011, Wowow expanded their single channel broadcast satellite service to provide four high-definition TV channels: Wowow Prime (WOWOWプライム), a general entertainment channel, Wowow Live (WOWOWライブ), covering sports, documentaries, movies and live performances, Wowow Cinema (WOWOWシネマ), a 24-hour movie channel and Wowow Plus. This last channel, formerly known as Cinéfil Wowow, broadcasts on channel 250 and adopted its current name on December 1, 2020.
Wowow also operated a 4K channel which launched in March 2021 and closed on February 28, 2025.
From Wikipedia’s article on Wowow, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3