Telecential was a cable TV provider based in Hemel Hempstead, The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) and ran one of the first community based TV stations in West Herts TV. Telecential also began the development of the 1990s cable TV network in Reading, Berkshire. Other areas covered were Northamptonshire (where they bought County Cable, and Swindon (Swindon Cable). Telecential were jointly owned by Tele-Communications_Inc (TCI) and Telus.
As the UK Cable TV industry consolidated:-
- Telecential were bought by Comtel with its HQ in Wokingham
- Comtel were bought by Cabletel with its HQ in Hook, North Hampshire
- Cabletel rebranded as NTL
- NTL merged with Telewest branded as ntl: Telewest
- Formally, Telewest bought NTL to avoid activating change of ownership clauses relating to Telewest's joint ownership of UKTV via Flextech
- ntl: Telewest bought Virgin Mobile and re-branded as Virgin Media
Virgin Media are as of February 2013 in the process of being taken over by Liberty Global, a successor to TCI, one of the founding companies behind Telecential, bringing their cable franchises full-circle.