Westminster Cable Launches!

24 Channels in 1985?!

It always amuses me to think that, back in 1985, my family was making doing with a paltry four channels. It’s laughable, now, to consider such a limited choice of broadcasting, but that’s how it was back then. Unless, of course, you were lucky enough to live in an area served by cable television.

The affluent streets of Westminster, with their regal Georgian townhouses and elegantly polished postcodes, opened their arms to cable television on the 18th December 1985, providing residents with a wealth of choice few had seen before.

The channels available at launch, as described in the above Television Today article, read like a time capsule of 1980s aspiration: Premiere, The Children’s Channel, Music Box, Screen Sport, TV5 and - to underline the service’s cosmopolitan flavour - a Dubai-based news service. A bargain at £6 a month, if only for the dinner-party bragging rights.

In today’s landscape of multichannel excess and Netflix, we would sniff dismissively at a mere 24 channels, but this was revolutionary at the time. Sure, there was no original programming, so Westminster has little to offer the history books in terms of content. But ambition? It was laced with it and deserves a standing ovation.

A few years ago, I was lucky enough to have a promotional VHS for Westminster Cable come into my possession. At some point, I’ll upload it here for you to, in amongst the static and multiple dropouts, revel in its shimmering promise of progress.