British television

British television broadcasting has a range of different broadcasters, broadcasting multiple channels over a variety of distribution media.

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National free-to-air analogue terrestrial broadcasters:

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• The BBC is the oldest British broadcaster. Its analogue channels are BBC One and BBC Two. The BBC first began a television service, initially serving London only, in 1936. BBC Television was closed during World War II but reopened in 1946. The second station, BBC Two, was launched in 1964.
• Independent Television (ITV) was the name given to the original commercial British television broadcasters, set up on a regional basis in 1955 to provide competition to the BBC. Almost all of these companies have now merged into a single business. Its flagship analogue channel is ITV1.
• Channel 4, and S4C in Wales, were launched in 1982.
• five (previously known as Channel 5) was the final analogue broadcaster to be launched, in 1997. Its coverage is less than that of the other analogue broadcasters.

All of these channels are also carried on satellite television, cable television and digital terrestrial television services.

Related Topics:
Satellite television - Cable television - Digital terrestrial television

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No further analogue broadcasters are expected to be launched, and efforts are being made to popularise the uptake of digital television so that analogue television broadcasts can be discontinued and the bandwidth allocated can be reused.

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British television: Digital terrestrial television ►