Trade Chat Multi Broadcast Brochures

Posted by: @crustytv

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we all love to sniff a brochure,especially vintage ones.

I remember when I could smell things... 😪 Which reminds me - having bought some book deodoriser from Preservation Equipment Limited, I now need to find an airtight container to put the 1932(?) East London Rubber catalogue in.

The Multi Broadcast brochure has now been scanned and added to the brochure section of the main website. I think this is a first, as I've not seen any online before now.

https://www.radios-tv.co.uk/1981-multi-broadcast-tv-video-teletext/

p.s.

I'll scan the videotapes catalogue later and create another brochure link to that.

Some memories there! Taking an average price of £25 a month to rent a TV/VCR package that equates to almost £90 a month in today's money. Good old TX10! Went on forever! A new focus unit and the occasional tube you could get 10 years out of them!  

I see the postcode doesn't exist any more and that Walworth Way in Sunderland is a residential development?

Posted by: @crustytv

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Multi Broadcast (Rentals)
32 Walworth Way
Sunderland SR2 7DW

Anyone from the N.E. remember them?

 

Remember it well as we had a branch (D.E.R.) exactly opposite, same parent company vying for the same business. Walworh Way together with Market Square was Sunderland's shopping mall and known as The Windy City, a plethora of TV outlets in there back in the day. I can remember Currys, Loyds, Visionhire, Dixons, Radio Rentals and a couple of others and of course even Boots the Chemist even sold TVs . Later Multibroadcast rebranded to Vista in the North East.

Posted by: @cathovisor

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I see the postcode doesn't exist any more and that Walworth Way in Sunderland is a residential development?

The shops still exist but the open air mall was covered and was renamed "The Bridges" in the late 80s. The housing developments were above the mall and are still there. 

If you want to see some of the outlets back in 1973 check out "Meanwhile Back In Sunderland" on YouTube. Lookout for the red and white Murphy V2314D Acoustic deluxe. Guess who had a hand in that.

Posted by: @jayceebee

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Lookout for the red and white Murphy V2314D Acoustic deluxe. Guess who had a hand in that.

Hmmmm.... 😳 

I was saying to Chris @crustytv last Wednesday, I honestly can't remember seeing a Multibroadcast in Newcastle when I was growing up in the 80s.

TV shops were something that interested me so I remember D.E.R. (my Mother rented a 22" TX10 from there), Radio Rentals, Rumbelows, Currys, Dixons, Comet, Laskeys, Rediffusion, Granada (I remember watching one branch of Rediffusion have its sign changed to Granada). Even the Multibroadcast logo I'd never seen before. 

@wayned Prior to being Multibroadcast I believe they were known as Multisignals. ISTR it would be around 1980 or so when they became Vista up here.

You rarely if ever see much in the way of Multi Broadcast items turn up, the brochures were a total surprise to find, and even more so that they were relatively local to me. As for the rentals, they just hardly ever surface.

I was however very surprised to see a Thorn 2000 come up last year, even had its stand. Super rare, quite possibly the only one, and it's 19". Not as pretty as the 19" HMV in my opinion.

I have just two Multi Broadcast badged items in my collection, a Thorn 9000 series, and TX10 Super Stereo. I really should look out for a Badged VCR.

I used to have a D|E|R badged 9000, again D|E|R equipment are super rare. I moved that on before I had the museum, as I was short on space at the time. It was the 9905 series chassis.

Other than these above, I've not seen anything else surface in years of looking.

@crustytv Multibroadcast along with many other Thorn rental companies didn't, in general, sell any sets or video recorders on. I think the idea was that any set sold on was then a potential customer lost. That policy changed towards the end of the rental boom in the 1980's though. A lot of equipment before that either was broken up for spares or dumped I believe. Of course some rental customers did a runner and took the rental equipment with them.

I'll look forward to seeing these uploaded.

Multibroadcast was a brand unknown to me until I started to get interested in old electronics a few years ago.

I don't think Stockport had a shop, from what I remember.

Posted by: @richardfrommarple

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I'll look forward to seeing these uploaded.

They're already uploaded, I posted the link above.

@jayceebee Multibroadcast seems have started out in Rugby in 1947 as a wired wireless (if that makes any sense) rental company where as Multisignals, I believe, started in Bedford doing a similar thing around 1961. Both became part of the Thorn group in the 1960's. Multisignals was still going in 1971 but then looks to have been absorbed by Radio Rentals. It all gets a bit confusing as Thorn had a hand in so many companies in it's time.

I've now scanned the Video at Home catalogue that came with the Multi Broadcast brochures. Looking at one of the MB brochures pages, it states if you rent a VCR from them, you got one free year's membership to the" At Home Video" club. Was this something Multi Broadcast operated themselves, or was it a tie-in with a Video outlet?

https://www.radios-tv.co.uk/1981-video-at-home-catalogue/

Remember Video At Home but that is a much more extensive catalogue of titles than we had in D.E.R. 

 I found this picture of a Mutibroadcast shop. No idea where this branch was. Seems to be from about 1977/8 just before video recorders became a big thing. Sorry if quality not great