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49-742: Telewest (previously Telewest Broadband and Telewest Communications ) was a cable internet , broadband internet , telephone supplier and cable television provider in the United Kingdom. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange , and was also once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index . In March 2006, Telewest merged with fellow cable telecom company NTL , and created "NTL:Telewest", which then also merged with Virgin Mobile and Virgin.net in June 2006, creating

98-430: A bandwidth cap , or other bandwidth throttling technique; users' download speed is limited during peak times, if they have downloaded a large amount of data that day. Comedy Central (British TV channel) Comedy Central is a British pay television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated . This channel is specific to audiences within the United Kingdom and Ireland. The channel

147-464: A cash option ; the poor performance of the company's stock meant that the cash option was favourable, and the company was not able to cover the call. In September 2003, Telewest restructured itself, by swapping its unsecured debt for 98.5% of its shares. The London Stock Exchange then delisted the consolidated shares. Major Telewest shareholders included Huff and Liberty Media (run by cable tycoon John Malone ). The takeover of Telewest by NTL –

196-578: A PVR, and HDTV. This library included a free seven day watch again feature for television programmes produced by the BBC , Channel 4 and Virgin Media Television (formerly known as Flextech). On Demand also offered movies that could be purchased and watched as many times as desired within a twenty four hour period. On Demand also offered HD content that worked in conjunction with the Telewest PVR (now renamed

245-401: A cable modem at the customer's premises and a cable modem termination system (CMTS) at a cable operator facility, typically a cable television headend . The two are connected via coaxial cable to a hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) network. While access networks are referred to as last-mile technologies, cable Internet systems can typically operate where the distance between the modem and

294-474: A combination of the names of both founding companies. In June 1995, Telewest merged with SBC Communications, adding franchises in the Midlands and North West serving 1.3 million homes. During this time Telewest founded a consortium called Cable Internet. This consisted of the major cable companies in the United Kingdom working together a provide national Internet access service. In March 1998, Telewest announced

343-543: A company of similar size, operating in different parts of the UK – was announced in October 2005, at a reported cost of $ 6bn. At that time, Telewest had 8,400 staff in the UK. The combined company at first used the name NTL:Telewest, then changed its name to Virgin Media in 2007, following the acquisition of Virgin Mobile the previous year. In late 2004, negotiations for renewed carriage of

392-492: A daytime schedule beginning broadcasts at 9:00am. On 1 July 2002, the channel renamed itself Paramount Comedy. By 2005, with the timeshift channel Paramount Comedy 2 having gone on the air in 2003, the primary channel was renamed as Paramount Comedy 1. On 17 February 2009, it was confirmed that Paramount Comedy 1 would become Comedy Central from 6 April 2009 in the UK and Ireland. Since season 13 , Comedy Central has aired new episodes of South Park two days after they aired in

441-547: A fixed monthly fee. Mobile calls with 25% reduction from standard rates. Similar principle to Talk Mobile, with different reductions to different countries. Packages including 200, 400, or 800 minutes of usage per month. Telewest were the first landline company to offer a package of this kind which included bundled minutes every month that could be carried over to the next. It included calls to mobiles, landlines (01 and 02; latterly also 03), businesses with 0845 and 0870 numbers, and specified international mobiles and landlines. It

490-565: A free upgrade to the Disney Channel for periods of between one and three months, while others were reportedly offered upgrades to Sky Movies packages in an attempt to keep them from leaving. The Nickelodeon channels returned to the Telewest platform on 12 February 2005 following successful renegotiation in Nickelodeon's favour. Telewest used a number of marketing strategies over the years, with

539-505: A merged deal with its largest shareholder Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI), to form the largest cable operator in the United States; the deal was valued at $ 142.5m, and by June the deal was improved. The deal was finalised a week later on 8 June 1991, with TCI acquiring the remaining 46% of United Artists, to allow full control. TCI and US West announced a joint venture, and in 1992, the joint venture company became Telewest Communications,

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588-789: A merger with General Cable, and acquired the outstanding interest in Birmingham Cable, adding a further 1.7 million franchise homes in Yorkshire, west London and Birmingham. Telewest purchased the remaining 50% stake in Cable London from NTL in August 1999, adding 0.4 million franchise homes in North London . Telewest merged with Flextech in April 2000, and in November, extended its cable network with

637-468: A population of users share the available bandwidth . Some technologies share only their core network , while some including cable internet and passive optical network (PON) also share the access network . This arrangement allows the network operator to take advantage of statistical multiplexing , a bandwidth sharing technique which is employed to distribute bandwidth fairly, in order to provide an adequate level of service at an acceptable price. However,

686-435: A regular basis, typically from 10:00 pm onwards. In 2016, Comedy Central introduced a new service called Thursday Night Movies , in which a movie is broadcast on Comedy Central every Thursday, usually at about 9:00pm. Until late 2011, Comedy Central and Comedy Central Extra continued to air in 4:3 in standard-definition, although many shows had already converted to 16:9 widescreen format, they were cropped to remain in

735-501: A solid corporate identity not coming out until the end of 2005, to coincide with a "three for £30" offer. Until 2007, the company used the mascot Ellie West to promote its services. In November 2004, when The Incredibles was released, Telewest promoted Blueyonder internet services with branding from the film, including television adverts starring characters from the film. Telewest provided several residential services on its cable network, including: The majority of Telewest's television

784-557: A testcard featuring a chicken crossing the road and holding up traffic airing during downtime (a segment deemed as "Chicken Tonite") until Nickelodeon started up at 6:00am. In February 1997, the Paramount Channel became the Paramount Comedy Channel, a channel dedicated solely to comedy. With expansion of Sky Digital on 4 February 2001, the channel no longer shared air time with Nickelodeon and started broadcasting with

833-524: A £75 setup fee and £10/month, although no subscription HD channels were offered. Telewest's fees however included the TV Drive recording service, equivalent to the recording features of the Sky+ service. Telewest's internet service called Blueyonder, formerly branded as Cable Internet, used the cable infrastructure and offered speeds of 2  Mbit/s , 4 Mbit/s and 10 Mbit/s downstream. The broadband service

882-516: Is aligned with the original US version of the channel . The channel started as The Paramount Channel in 1995, before rebranding as the Paramount Comedy Channel in 1997 and again as Paramount Comedy 1 in 2004 before finally becoming Comedy Central on 6 April 2009. The channel was launched as The Paramount Channel on 1 November 1995. The original schedule was a mixture of comedy and drama, including such eclectic offerings as Beauty and

931-451: Is popular, then "a third run could be up to 22 episodes in length." As of May 2012 , details about most of the new projects are not publicly available, though the magazine Broadcast reported minor details of a proposed single-camera sitcom about a graduate who moves back in with his parents. A pilot episode of Big Bad World , which is written by Joe Tucker and Lloyd Woolf is reportedly being produced by Objective Productions and by

980-797: Is registered within the Czech Republic. In October 2011, Threesome , a narrative comedy series and Comedy Central's first original scripted comedy began. The series starred Emun Elliott , Irish actor Amy Huberman and Stephen Wight , was written by Tom MacRae , and produced by Big Talk Productions . In May 2012, it was announced that Comedy Central was to make a major push into original comedy content, with more than 20 new projects at various stages of development, and 10 scripts already ordered. Programming executive Sarah Farrell told trade magazine Broadcast , "This time next year, we will be doing as many of those projects as we possibly can. We are looking for things that are big, broad and accessible, with

1029-596: The BBC , and claimed to be the only provider in the United Kingdom to offer all the 2006 FIFA World Cup matches in HD. In reality, however, half of the final group stage matches were not available in HD. Telewest's HD service was provided exclusively through their TV Drive box. Sky launched their HD service in May 2006, initially charging a £300 setup fee and an additional £10/month for several subscription HD channels, including HD versions of Sky One, Sky Movies and Sky Sports. Telewest charged

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1078-512: The Nickelodeon channels (Nickelodeon, Nick Jr. and Nicktoons ) broke down; Telewest was unwilling to pay extra to keep the channels and preferred to drop them. Other Viacom -owned channels remained, such as MTV and, the now former, Paramount Comedy 1 . The reaction to this by customers was fairly large and many left the provider to rival Sky , with Nickelodeon even encouraging the move. Other customers were retained by Telewest offering them

1127-447: The Beast , several Japanese anime productions acquired from Manga Entertainment , and authentic Paramount archive programming such as The Magician , as well as Nickelodeon 's Ren & Stimpy , which was shown on Paramount rather than Nickelodeon due to its rather adult nature at times. It originally aired every evening after Nickelodeon 's closing at 7:00pm until around 4:00am, with

1176-785: The ISP's IP (Internet Protocol) network. Downstream , the direction toward the user, bit rates can be as high as 1 Gbit/s . Upstream traffic, originating at the user, ranges from 384 kbit/s to more than 50 Mbit/s, although maximum effective range seems to be unknown. One downstream channel can handle hundreds of cable modems. As the system grows, the CMTS can be upgraded with more downstream and upstream ports, and grouped into hub CMTSs for efficient management. Most Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification ( DOCSIS ) cable modems restrict upload and download rates, with customizable limits. These limits are set in configuration files which are downloaded to

1225-568: The US (i.e., the episodes air on Comedy Central US on Wednesdays, and air on the UK counterpart on Fridays.) At 9:00pm on 6 April, Paramount Comedy 1 was finally relaunched as Comedy Central, with the last programme on PC1 being an episode of Scrubs and the first programme on Comedy Central being a new episode of Two and a Half Men . Comedy Central idents from this era were filmed in locations such as The Gherkin , Forth Bridge and Nelson's Column . After no longer having to timeshare with Nickelodeon,

1274-592: The United Kingdom's first " quadruple play " telecom provider, offering television, internet, landline phone and mobile phone services. In February 2007, NTL:Telewest was rebranded as Virgin Media . Telewest originated in Croydon in 1984 under the name "Croydon Cable". United Cable, of Denver , acquired Croydon Cable in 1988. Franchises extended the company scope into Edinburgh and the southwest and southeast of England. In 1989, United Cable merged with United Artists Cable International. In May 1991, United Artists announced

1323-544: The V+). Telewest's HD service initially comprised around 10–30 hours per week of video on demand content, with no linear high definition television channels available, although the early trial services of BBC HD and ITV HD were carried for a brief time. In January 2006, Telewest started to broadcast HD documentaries such as The Blue Planet , Planet Earth and Pride through their Teleport service, and later broadcast some movies in HD. Telewest had an agreement with both ITV and

1372-490: The acquisition of Eurobell , taking the total number of homes passed to 4.9 million. The company later became known as "Telewest Broadband" in a rebrand during 2001. Telewest experienced financial difficulties in subsequent years, owing to the debts incurred as a result of constructing its cable network and acquiring other cable companies and assets. Notably, the Eurobell acquisition had been funded by an equity based deal, with

1421-474: The channel also became available on Virgin Media channel 133. Comedy Central HD broadcasts high-definition programming including Two and a Half Men , 30 Rock , and South Park , in addition to new UK commissions. Virgin Media will also make some popular Comedy Central HD programmes available on demand. A second timeshift, Paramount Comedy 2 +1 (now Comedy Central Extra +1) was launched on Sky channel 159, on 5 November 2007. Nicktoons Replay did timeshare with

1470-430: The channel announced there would be a 22-minute pilot episode due to be released in 2017 on Comedy Central. A full series would happen if the show is well received. In 2021, Comedy Central UK ordered three new shows for the network including quiz show Fact Off and panel show The Complaints Department . The third new show was an all female comedy panel/satire show called Yesterday, Today and The Day Before which

1519-420: The channel at 9pm, under the new name of Rob Beckett's Undeniable , with Joe Swash, Kae Kurd, Angela Barnes and Ivo Graham, the first guests of the new series. The channel frequently airs weekend marathons which consist of one or two shows being on-air for the majority of the day. They often contain loose themes and are on occasion sponsored, such as the "He Ain't Funny, He's My Brother" marathon which ran on

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1568-413: The channel between 6:00am and 7:00pm. However, that channel closed on 2 October 2012 and was replaced with a one-hour timeshift version of Nick Jr. , allowing Comedy Central Extra +1 to broadcast 24 hours a day. Comedy Central Extra +1 closed on 20 July 2020 along with the timeshifts for MTV and MTV Music , as well as MTV OMG , Club MTV and MTV Rocks . Comedy Central has an alternative Irish feed of

1617-465: The laugh-out-loud factor that comes from big jokes and set pieces." She also noted that they are now "fully committed to the plans." The process was being micro-managed by Paramount bosses in New York, but with the announcement of such projects and Threesome ' s success, UK executives have been given greater control. Farrell also indicated that if the already commissioned second series of Threesome

1666-473: The light pulses into RF signals in coaxial cables again using transmitter and receiver modules, and the cable modem termination system (CMTS) connects to these coaxial cables. An example of an optics platform is the Arris CH3000. There are two coaxial cables at the CMTS for each node: one for the downstream (download speed signal), and the other for the upstream (upload speed signal). The CMTS then connects to

1715-528: The modem using the Trivial File Transfer Protocol , when the modem first establishes a connection to the provider's equipment. Some users have attempted to override the bandwidth cap and gain access to the full bandwidth of the system by uploading their own configuration file to the cable modem - a process called uncapping . In most residential broadband technologies, such as cable Internet, DSL , satellite internet , or wireless broadband ,

1764-524: The modems are connected with coaxial cable to a coaxial cable "trunk" via distribution "taps" on the trunk, which then connects to the node, possibly using amplifiers along the trunk. The optical node converts the Radiofrequency (RF) signal in the coaxial cable trunk into light pulses to be sent through optical fibers in the HFC network. At the other end of the network, an optics platform or headend platform converts

1813-702: The night of 24 November 2007. This night consisted of episodes from shows with a strong brother relationship theme and was sponsored by the film The Darjeeling Limited to promote its nationwide release. Comedy Central also broadcasts comedy, animation or action films, including South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut , Dumb and Dumber , Jerry Maguire , The Mask , White Chicks , Scary Movie 3 , Teen Wolf , 13 Going on 30 , Bad Boys , Bad Boys 2 , Police Academy: Mission to Moscow , Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me , and Happy Feet . The channel has begun showing movies on

1862-420: The operator has to monitor usage patterns and scale the network appropriately, to ensure that customers receive adequate service even during peak-usage times. If the network operator does not provide enough bandwidth for a particular neighborhood, the connection would become saturated and speeds would drop if many people are using the service at the same time, or drop out completely. Operators have been known to use

1911-469: The other VIMN ( Viacom International Media Networks ) networks in the UK, Comedy Central, fueled by the purchase of Channel 5 , there has been an announcement to open a production studio to make programming for Comedy Central and other channels. It was announced in 2016 that Comedy Central and Channel X had greenlit a new prank comedy reality show presented and starting YouTuber Ben Phillips and his friends. The new series, titled Ben Phillips Blows Up ,

1960-639: The same channel available on Sky Ireland , Virgin Media Ireland , Vodafone TV , and Eir . The feed launched in May 2006, advertising on this channel is overseen by Sky Media Ireland. The domain name comedycentral.ie also redirects to comedycentral.co.uk . An additional Irish commercial feed of the time-shift service, Comedy Central +1, was also launched shortly after the parent channel's re-branding on 6 April 2009. On 31 July 2019, Comedy Central Ireland +1 ceased broadcasting. From 31 March 2019, Comedy Central and Comedy Central Extra's Irish broadcasting licence

2009-434: The station increased its broadcasting hours, and was joined by Paramount Comedy 2 (later rebranded as Comedy Central Extra ) on 1 September 2003. A one-hour timeshift, Paramount Comedy 1 +1 (now Comedy Central +1) was launched on Sky channel 127 on 30 August 2005 and Virgin Media channel 133 shortly after. A high-definition version, Comedy Central HD , launched on 9 August 2010 on Sky channel 222. On 1 September 2010

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2058-457: The team behind Peep Show . Tristram Shapeero , who had been working in the US and whose credits include Happy Endings , Green Wing , Community , and I'm Alan Partridge , will direct, with Andrew Newman and Ben Farrell executive producing. Five further scripts are already complete, should the pilot be seen in a positive light by Comedy Central bosses. Comedy Central's move into original productions did not come without problems, as it

2107-411: The termination system is up to 160 kilometres (99 mi). If the HFC network is large, the cable modem termination system can be grouped into hubs for efficient management. Several standards have been used for cable internet, but the most common is DOCSIS. A cable modem at the customer is connected via coaxial cable to an optical node, and thus into an HFC network. An optical node serves many modems as

2156-399: Was 'uncapped', meaning that its use was unlimited and no extra charges were payable related to the amount of data downloaded. The offering included free webspace where customers could create their own websites, which was discontinued for new customers after the rebranding to Virgin Media. In November 2006, after the merger with NTL, The Register reported that subscriber traffic management

2205-464: Was announced in April 2012 that Pete Thornton, the channel's comedy commissioner, had resigned to return to the BBC comedy department as its Creative Head of Comedy, and would oversee Comic Relief 2013 . Comedy Central is one of several UK digital channels to work on increasing their original comedy output, with BSkyB investing in new British comedy programmes, and UKTV channels Dave and Gold also producing more of their own content. Alongside

2254-552: Was available nationally, varying in price depending on the number of minutes. Telewest owned Flextech , a content-provider with a number of wholly owned channels (including Bravo and LIVINGtv ). Additionally, Flextech had a 50% share in UKTV (with BBC Worldwide ), and owned Sit-Up Ltd , who operated Screenshop , bid TV , price-drop TV and Speed Auction TV . More than 400,000 television service subscribers. Cable Internet access Broadband cable Internet access requires

2303-415: Was being trialled in areas of northern England, and would be rolled out nationwide. Blueyonder also provided dial-up internet services on a pay-as-you-go tariff, or a fixed monthly fee of £14.99 for unlimited use. Provided landline calls for up to an hour for a fixed fee monthly inclusive of line rental. Telewest were the first landline company in the United Kingdom to offer 'unlimited' calls to landlines for

2352-413: Was digital. There were, however, areas that received an analogue service (Slough, Windsor and some areas in west London). Late in its independent existence, Telewest was in the process of converting the remaining analogue areas to digital, and it was expected that the analogue service would cease in 2007. The digital television service offered a number of different products including true video on demand ,

2401-473: Was due to be hosted each week by comedians Suzi Ruffell, Maisie Adam and Sophie Duker , until Duker quit after the first episode in protest over cuts to her monologue about conflict between Israel and Palestine. These shows join other unscripted/panel show formats on the network including Rhod Gilbert's Growing Pains , Comedy Game Night (previously shown on Channel 5) and Guessable? , hosted by Sara Pascoe. On 29 September 2021, Fact Off debuted on

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