SIC Comédia
SIC Comédia was a Portuguese TV channel, available on cable. It was part of the television network SIC. It closed on 31 December 2006.
The channel aired shows such as Seinfeld, The Tonight Show, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Cheers, The Benny Hill Show, M*A*S*H, Benson, Saturday Night Live, 'Allo 'Allo!, Comedy Inc., Mad About You, Everybody Loves Raymond, Frasier, My Hero, Alas Smith and Jones, The War Next Door. It also showed home-grown products, such as Biqueirada, HermanSic and Prazer dos Diabos.
It is now defunct, because TVCabo, Portugal's main cable provider, decided to drop it despite a petition for it to continue. On TVCabo, Fox Life replaced it, and on TVTEL, SIC Mulher got the spot.
History
SIC Gold
The channel was announced by SIC in January 2000 as SIC Gold as part of the channel's plans to enter the cable television market. The director of programs for the two channels, Francisco Penim, was appointed on 14 April 2000. The initial purpose of the channel was to carry programming from SIC's archives, similar to what RTP Memória has done since 2004. The channel was set to begin operations on 26 June 2000 but the lack of action from the regulatory body delayed its launch. The channel eventually started broadcasting on 29 June, achieving good ratings, equiparable to the most-watched Portuguese-language basic cable channels of the time.The channel was put into court for the unauthorized reruns of a program from the channel's first year, Sexo Forte, in a lawsuit filed by presenter Paula Moura Pinheiro. These reruns were broadcast in the summer of 2000, which the presenter objected. The Court of Oeiras ruled in favor of Paula Moura Pinheiro in June 2002, with SIC paying around €6,400 for the presenter in copyrights.