Telewest (TV channel)

This article is about the British television channel. For the former parent company of the Telewest network, see Telewest Group.

Telewest

Country	United Kingdom
Ownership
Owner	Telewest Group (WarnerMedia Global Entertainment)
Availability
Streaming media
TVPlayer	Watch live

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 (now WarnerMedia) for £13.8 billion (US$17.7 billion). Today, the Telewest network is operated and owned by WarnerMedia’s global entertainment 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.

History

Further information: Timeline of Telewest

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.

Subsidiary channels

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.

Branding

Further information: History of Telewest idents

On-air identity

• 

  The second logo, under the BCT name, used from 21 February 1988 to 30 March 1996.

• 

  The third logo, the first under the Telewest name, used from 30 March 1996 to 8 September 2009.

• 

  The fourth logo, used from 9 September 2009 to 17 October 2017.

• 

  The current logo, used since 18 October 2017.

Programming

Main article: List of programmes broadcast on Telewest