Telewest (TV channel)

Telewest is a British pay television channel. It was launched in 1985, and was the second non-terrestrial television channel in the United Kingdom.

The channel was branded as British Cable Television (BCT) between 1985 and 1996, when it was jointly owned by the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) and the Cable Authority. When the IBA was dissolved in 1990, the channel was sold to Telewest Communications (later renamed to Telewest Group) and adopted its current name in 1996. On 2 November 2015, the channel was acquired by American telecommunications conglomerate AT&T for £13.8 billion (US$17.7 billion). Today, the Telewest network is operated and owned by AT&T’s networks and streaming division. In the UK, the channel is available via digital satellite on Sky, digital cable on Virgin Media, IPTV on BT TV and TalkTalk TV and online via Sky Go.

Telewest broadcasts both internally and externally commissioned programmes such as The Valley People, The Stormont Show, The Biggest Loser, Loose Talk, How Clean is Your House? and some foreign-imported programmes, which mostly air on sister channels TW Too and TW Viceland.

Pre-launch
British Cable Television Limited was licensed by the UK's then independent statutory regulator the "Independent Broadcasting Authority" (IBA) in 1985; The only cable/satelite only television channels in the United Kingdom at the time before the network's launch were Sky Channel, Screensport, Music Box and Premiere.

The then-proposed channel's purpose was to provide a "strategic alternative" to terrestrial television services like BBC1, BBC2, ITV and Channel 4. After several months of test broadcasts, BCT would begin scheduled transmissions on 26 October 1985.

Telewest +1
Telewest +1 was launched on Sky on 6 December 2007. The channel was also expected to be made available via Virgin Media during 2008, eventually launching on 25 October 2008. As with other similar '+1' services, Telewest +1 rebroadcasts Telewest's entire programming output on a one-hour time-delay, though the 'Supercasino' commercial gaming block is blacked out on the timeshift.