Cable and Satellite

Abstract

Away from the media spotlight that shone so brightly on the start of Channel Four and nearly blinded TV-am, another television development began to impinge on public awareness in the 1980s – cable television. Because of its previous relative obscurity in comparison with broadcast television and the later arrival of satellite, the subject received scant coverage in previous volumes of Independent Television in Britain. It may, therefore, be helpful if this chapter begins by going further back in history than the decade with which it is formally concerned.