As of 2005, analogue transmissions are still the most used method of receiving television in the United Kingdom. It is expected that terrestrial analogue transmission will cease by 2012 with a phased transition to digital terrestrial television (based on the DVB-T standard and generally known in the UK under the brandname "Freeview") occuring on a regional basis from 2008 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ... 2012 is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Digital Terrestrial Television (DTTV or DTT) is an implementation of digital technology to provide a greater number of channels (SDTV) and/or better quality of picture (EDTV, HDTV) and sound (AC3, Dolby Digital) through a conventional aerial instead of a satellite dish or cable connection. ... DVB, short for Digital Video Broadcasting, is a suite of internationally accepted, open standards for digital television maintained by the DVB Project, an industry consortium with more than 300 members, and published by a Joint Technical Committee (JTC) of European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC... Freeview is a free-to-air digital television service in the United Kingdom broadcast from terrestrial transmitters using the DVB-T standard. ... // Predicted events January-June January 15 - NASAs MESSENGER spacecraft makes the first of three flybys of Mercury. ...

Channels available nationally

• BBC One - Run by the BBC, funded by a yearly mandatory licence fee.
• BBC Two - Run by the BBC, funded by a yearly mandatory licence fee.
• ITV1 - Independent commercial broadcaster. Branded as UTV in Northern Ireland, Scottish TV in Southern Scotland, Grampian in Northern Scotland and Channel in the Channel Islands.
• Channel 4 - State-owned commercial broadcaster. Not available in Wales.
• S4C - Channel 4's equivalent in Wales only. Independent commercial broadcaster, partly financed by the licence fee. 50% of programming is in Welsh.
• five - Independent commercial broadcaster. Is often incorrectly referred to by its original name, Channel 5. Is still not available in the whole of the UK.

BBC One (or BBC1 as it was formerly styled) is the oldest television station in the world. ... Corporate logo of the British Broadcasting Corporation The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national publicly funded broadcaster of the United Kingdom. ... BBC Two (or BBC2 as it was formerly styled) was the second UK television station to be aired by the BBC. // History The channel was scheduled to begin at 7:20 pm on April 20, 1964 and show an evening of light entertainment, starting with the comedy show The Alberts... Corporate logo of the British Broadcasting Corporation The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national publicly funded broadcaster of the United Kingdom. ... ITV1 is a terrestrial, free-to-air television channel broadcast in the United Kingdom by the ITV network. ... Ulster Television plc (UTV) is a media company based in Northern Ireland. ... Scottish Television is Scotlands largest independent television franchisee, and has held the ITV franchise for Central Scotland since 1957. ... Grampian (Roinn a Mhonaidh in Gaelic) was a local government region of Scotland from 1975 to 1996. ... The current Channel TV ident Channel Television (CTV) is a British television station which has served as an Independent Television (ITV), contractor to the Channel Islands since 1962. ... Channel 4 is a public service television broadcaster in the United Kingdom (see British television). ... S4C (Sianel Pedwar Cymru - Channel Four Wales) is a Welsh-language television channel broadcasting in Wales, United Kingdom, which was established in response to demands for a channel to cater for the Welsh-speaking minority population in Wales. ... five, formerly known as Channel 5, is the United Kingdoms fifth terrestrial TV Channel. ...

Former systems

Television broadcasting began on an experimental basis by the BBC in 1936. Initially the service was operated using two competing systems, Corporate logo of the British Broadcasting Corporation The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national publicly funded broadcaster of the United Kingdom. ... 1936 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

The earliest television broadcasts used the 210-line Baird system and the 405-line Marconi-EMI system on alternate weeks. However, the Baird system proved too cumbersome and by early 1937 had been dropped and the Marconi-EMI system became the standard. This system was later codified by the ITU as System A. This article is about the location. ... There are several broadcast television systems in use in the world today. ...

Different broadcast stations across the country broadcast on different channels to avoid interference.

Broacast was suspended during the war but resumed in 1945. The BBC was joined on this system in 1954 with the launch of commerical television in the form of the regional ITV network. 1945 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1954 was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Independent Television (ITV) is the name given to the original network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up to provide competition to the BBC. In England and Wales the channel was recently rebranded ITV1 by ITV plc who own the regional broadcasting licences for the regions. ...

This was the sole system in existance until the preparations for the introduction of colour in 1964.

It ceased broadcasting in 1985
1985 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Current System

When it was decided to introduce colour televison, it was inially intended to add the american system NTSC to the British system A a system that would have been known as NTSC-A. However the government instead decided to standardise on the European 625 line PAL system. Rather than broadcast on the existing VHF channels under system A, a new system was adopted known as System I. As such, the UK standard is PAL-I. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... For other meanings of PAL see PAL (disambiguation). ... There are several broadcast television systems in use in the world today. ...

Broadcast on this system commenced in 1964 with the launch of BBC 2. It was later joined by BBC 1 and the ITV franchises, however these channels constinued to broadcast on the VHF system A until 1985. BBC 2, Channel 4 and S4C (the latter two being introduced in 1981) only ever broadcast on UHF. 1964 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... BBC Two (or BBC2 as it was formerly styled) was the second UK television station to be aired by the BBC. // History The channel was scheduled to begin at 7:20 pm on April 20, 1964 and show an evening of light entertainment, starting with the comedy show The Alberts... BBC One (or BBC1 as it was formerly styled) is the oldest television station in the world. ... Independent Television (ITV) is the name given to the original network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up to provide competition to the BBC. In England and Wales the channel was recently rebranded ITV1 by ITV plc who own the regional broadcasting licences for the regions. ... 1985 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Channel 4 is a public service television broadcaster in the United Kingdom (see British television). ... S4C (Sianel Pedwar Cymru - Channel Four Wales) is a Welsh-language television channel broadcasting in Wales, United Kingdom, which was established in response to demands for a channel to cater for the Welsh-speaking minority population in Wales. ... 1981 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

The british channel numbering scheme divided the spectrum into 49 channels numbered 21 through to 69. These channels were allocated to the broadcasters to allow for four channels nationwide, two BBC channels, the ITV network and a proposed second network for ITV to be called "ITV 2". This last network was never launched (though a channel called ITV2 was eventually lauched as a digital channel in 1998), but the channels it was to be allocated were allocated to the commercial broadcasters Channel 4 and S4C instead. As such, when Channel 5 launched in 1997 a massive retuning exercise had to be undertaken at the broadcaster's expense. Even after this is was still not possible to transmit channel 5 to the whole of the UK 1998 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... five, formerly known as Channel 5, is the United Kingdoms fifth terrestrial TV Channel. ...

Due to the networks being nationwide, it is convention that television sets be tuned such that channel 1 is tuned to BBC One, 2 to BBC Two, 3 to the ITV network (later branded as ITV1), 4 to Channel 4 or S4C and 5 to five regardless of what actual channel the station is broadcasting on.

In addition to the 5 national networks, a limited number of local stations are broadcasted to various town under what is known as a Restricted Service Licence. These occupy channels unused by the other broadcasters that can be used without causing interference in other regions.
A UK Restricted Service Licence (often called an RSL), is granted by British broadcasting authority Ofcom to radio stations serving a local community or a special event. ...

Digital Switch-over

The government is committed to switching terrestrial television broadcasting to completely digital by 2012. A company called SwitchCo has been set up to handle the change. It has proposed switching on a region by region basis using the ITV regions as a basis 2012 is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Use on satellite and cable systems

Initially satellite and cable systems broadcast using standard (PAL-I) signals. though often scrambled to prevent people watching the channels without paying a subscription.

The major provider of satellite television in the UK, BSkyB lauched a digital service (called Sky Digital) in 1998 based on DVB-S. This allowed many more channels and utilised a smaller dish. Take-up was very successful and Sky discontinued the former analogue service in 2001. British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB - formerly two companies, Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting) is a company that operates Sky Digital, the most popular subscription television service in the UK and Ireland. ... Sky Digital is the brand name for British Sky Broadcastings digital satellite television service, transmitted from SES Astra satellites located at 28. ... 2001: A Space Odyssey. ...

Cable has not fully transitioned to the digital format (DVB-C) as some parts of the physical cable network are not suitable for transmitting the digital signals. It is not known when (if ever) analogue transmission will cease on these systems. In some parts of the network where digital cable is availble, cable transmissions have been ceased in order that the bandwidth may be utilied for more data for the digital platform, in others both systems run alongside each other, though often new channels will launch on digital at the expense of channels on the older analogue network, which encourages those users to switch.