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 WarnerMedia International Networks, a unit of the WarnerMedia Entertainment division of WarnerMedia, a mass media company owned by AT&T. 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 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.