the IBA; in 1980, they were allowed to keep their franchise, but with several tough conditions. Engineering advances The Experimental and Development Department, as part of the IBA's Engineering Division, was responsible for much leading-edge research into broadcasting technology as well as being responsible for the design and manufacture of specialist equipment that could not be procured from commercial manufacturers. In particular, the IBA's E&D Department developed SABRE (Steerable Adaptable Broadcast Receiving Equipment) that enabled mainland broadcast television channels to be received for re-broadcasting in the Channel Islands. During the early 1980s, the E&D Department designed and manufactured the specialised broadcast receiving and monitoring equipment used to build the national broadcast network for Channel Four. Subsequently, E&D's engineers proposed a system of analogue television encoding known as MAC (Multiplexed Analogue Component) to provide a standard for the forthcoming satellite television broadcasts that was more robust than an extension of the existing PAL system used for terrestrial broadcasts. E&D's engineers also designed and built some of the first digital audio equipment for satellite broadcasting including systems using data packets. E&D's engineers made many important contributions to digital television data-rate reduction whereby the encoding of a standard analogue PAL colour signal requiring some 130 Megabits/second has been reduced to less than 4 Megabits/second as used on current digital television broadcasting. Satellite broadcasting In the late 1980s the IBA was appointed as regulator and transmitter operator for the first DBS (direct broadcasting by satellite) service for the UK and awarded the franchise to BSB (British Satellite Broadcasting). In advance of this, the rival Sky Television was able to launch an analogue service and intended to overshadow BSB by leasing transponders from Société Européenne des Satellites' RCA Astro-built satellite, Astra 1A. After around a year, the company merged with BSB. Succession The IBA was disbanded as part of the Broadcasting Act 1990, being replaced on New Year's Day 1991 by the Independent Television Commission (ITC) (which also absorbed the Cable Authority), and the Radio Authority (RAu), which have since been merged with other regulators such as the Broadcasting Standards Commission (BSC) and Oftel (Office of Telecommunications) to form one regulator, Ofcom. All of the IBA's engineering function, except for a limited number of quality control engineers, was transferred to a newly set-up private company, National Transcommunications Limited (NTL), which continued to run the former IBA transmitter masts. These assets are now within the portfolio