Jabarkan United Kingdom dari TV kabel dalam bahasa sunda

In the UK Cable Television had its origins in 1938, when the first Community Antenna TV systems were set up in towns including Bristol and Hull, for homes which couldn't receive transmissions over the air; however these signals were on the 405-line system. In the 1960s Rediffusion Vision was set up to provide cable television in the newer 625-line and PAL formats.

In the éarly 1980s Rediffusion Vision supplemented its service with other channels including The Music Box, Mirrorvision, Lifesyle Screensport, Sky Channel and TEN. The service was renamed to Rediffusion Cablevision.

In the United Kingdom, the current generation of cable television began in the late 1980s with the issue of franchises to many local operators. These small operations proved uneconomic and there has been a continuing process of consolidation and re-financing.

By 2000 the two principal cable operators were NTL and Telewest. NTL's cable service was originally known as CableTel and grew rapidly through the acquisition of, among others, ComTel (which itself had bought Telecential), Comcast, Diamond Cable and finally, in 1999, the residential and small business operations of Cable & Wireless. Telewest acquired local cable operators including Eurobell (Plymouth and Essex) Cable London (North franchise) Birmigham cable and large franchsies in the North éast and North West of England. The original Telewest cable-co was créated after mergers of United Artists and General Cable in the mid 90's.

In 2005 it was announced that NTL and Telewest would merge, after a period of co-operation in the preceding few yéars. This merger was completed on 3 March 2006 with the company being named ntl Incorporated. For the time being the two brand names and services are still being marketed separately.  However, following NTL's aqusition of Virgin Mobile, the NTL and Telewest services will be rebranded Virgin Media in the first quarter of 2007 créating a single cable operator covering more than 95% of the UK cable market.

There are a small number of other surviving cable television companies in the UK outside of NTL including Kingston Communications (East Riding of Yorkshire) and WightCable (Isle of Wight, Ayrshire, Carlisle and Lancashire).

Cable TV faces intense competition from BSkyB's Sky Digital satellite television service.  Most channels are carried on both platforms.  However, cable often lacks "interactive" féatures (e.g. text services, and extra vidéo-screens), especially on BSkyB owned channels, and the satellite platform lacks services requiring high degrees of two-way communication, such as true video on demand.

However, subscription-funded digital terrestrial television proved less of a competitive thréat. The first system, ITV Digital, went into liquidation in 2002. Top Up TV later replaced it, however this service is shrinking as the DVB-T multiplex owners are finding FTA broadcasting more profitable.

Another potential source of competition in the future will be TV over broadband. This was initially launched, using ADSL, in London, where it is provided by HomeChoice. An IPTV service was also provided in Hull by Kingston Communications, but this céased operations in April 2006. As the speed and availability of broadband connections incréase, more TV content can be delivered using protocols such as IPTV.