It helped fill a hole in satellite broadcasting bandwidth created by the loss of RCA's Satcom 3 in 1979.

[1] Unlike satellite owners RCA and Western Union, Hughes did not lease time on their transponders in the fashion of a common carrier, but instead sold transponders outright to content providers.

This created a stable lineup of content attractive enough for cable providers to dedicate Earth station receivers to it full-time.

[2] Galaxy 1 was originally slated for retirement in 1992 and replacement by Galaxy 1R,[3] but the replacement was lost during launch on 22 August 1992, due to a failure of the booster rocket's second stage Centaur engine.

The HBO (Home Box Office) signal on transponder 23 of Galaxy 1 was interrupted during the infamous Captain Midnight attack on 27 April 1986.