Commencing operations in on 31 December 1983,[1] it primarily transmitted imported programmes in an unedited form, allowing all comical references to black people to be aired.
[3] In the apartheid era, a sizeable number of white people watched Bop TV, which offered a wider variety of entertainment and current affairs programming than the state-controlled South African Broadcasting Corporation, despite attempts to confine the signal to black areas such as Soweto.
[6][7] The channel was set up by Tim Ellis, who also assisted in the creation of the SABC's TV4 network (which went live after the 9pm closing time for both TV2 and TV3) and later M-Net.
[11] The channel was even carried in the early years of cable television in Israel[12] and was the primary way Israel saw CNN during the Gulf War,[13] being removed over concerns due to its American imports, program contracts and the refusal of the Israeli cable companies to pay for its reception.
The channel was already interested in buying new series such as The Simpsons (before even premiering on M-Net[15]) and The Arsenio Hall Show, but the prices for such were expensive.