The Parliamentary Channel

The Parliamentary Channel, launched as a cable-exclusive channel on 13 January 1992 operated by United Artists Cable and funded by a consortium of 16 British cable operators. The channel was operated by Flextech, who first became involved in the service in 1991 when (as United Artists Programming) initiated a trial project to provide coverage of “Yesterday in the Commons” which was broadcast on a number of cable networks. In 1992, following the success of this trial project, a consortium of Cable Operators came together and created “The Parliamentary Channel” based on the C-SPAN model in America. Flextech Television (then United Artists Progamming) were selected to manage and operate the Channel on the industry’s behalf and for various technical reasons still holds the PARBUL licence on behalf of the Channel today.

Under the direction of The Parliamentary Channel’s Board of Directors, Flextech expanded the service over the course of six years to provide 115 hours of informative political programming each week Parliament is in session, as well as a Teletext service and Website dedicated to providing information on the work of Parliament, which resulted in the channel becoming self funding, but was still operated as a non-profit venture, without any public money or sponsorship.

In 1998 the BBC has come forward with its own proposals for a Parliamentary channel funded through the licence fee. NTL welcomed the BBC’s involvement, however it believe there is little merit in duplicating its coverage of Parliament, by the summer 1998 The channel was purchased by the BBC, retitled BBC Parliament and relaunched on 23 September 1998.

We have no recordings at present.