page_title: Television in the United Kingdom
section_title: Cable television
hierarchical_section_title: Television in the United Kingdom / Broadcast television providers / Cable television
caption_attribution_description: Pavement being dug up to service a vandalised Virgin Media cabinet. The cables are visible, which carry television, radio, telephone and broadband.
context_page_description: Television in the United Kingdom started in 1936 as a public service which was free of advertising. Currently, the United Kingdom has a collection of free-to-air, free-to-view and subscription services over a variety of distribution media, through which there are over 480 channels for consumers as well as on-demand content. There are six main channel owners who are responsible for most material viewed. There are 27,000 hours of domestic content produced a year at a cost of £2.6 billion. Since 24 October 2012, all television broadcasts in the United Kingdom have been in a digital format, following the end of analogue transmissions in Northern Ireland. Digital content is delivered via terrestrial, satellite and cable, as well as over IP. As of 2003, 53.2% of households watch through terrestrial, 31.3% through satellite, and 15.6% through cable.
context_section_description: Many regional companies developed cable-television services in the late 1980s and 1990s as licenses for cable television were awarded on a city-by-city basis. The mid-1990s saw the companies start to merge and the turn of the century only three big companies remained. In 2007 Telewest and NTL merged, resulting in the formation of Virgin Media, which is available to 55% of households. Cable TV is a subscription service normally bundled with a phone line and broadband.
  WightFibre operates on the Isle of Wight, however it acts as a distributor for Sky and YouView instead of having an integrated TV service.
caption: A pavement dug up, revealing the cables underneath. The green box is a common sight in areas with cable coverage, as are manhole covers inscribed with CATV.
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