Editing Channel 4 (section)

===Conception===
{{main|Fourth UK television service}}
Before Channel 4 and S4C, Britain had three terrestrial television services: [[BBC1]], [[BBC2]], and [[ITV (TV network)|ITV]], with BBC2 the last to launch in 1964. The [[Broadcasting Act 1980]] began the process of adding a fourth channel; Channel Four Television Company was formally created in 1981, along with its [[S4C|Welsh counterpart]].

The notion of a second commercial broadcaster in the United Kingdom had been around since the inception of ITV in 1954 and its subsequent launch in 1955; the idea of an "ITV2" was long expected and pushed for. Indeed, television sets sold throughout the 1970s and early 1980s often had a spare tuning button labelled "ITV 2" or "IBA 2". Throughout [[History of ITV|ITV's history]] and until Channel 4 finally became a reality, a perennial dialogue existed between the [[General Post Office|GPO]], [[Government of the United Kingdom|the government]], the ITV companies and other interested parties, concerning the form such an expansion of commercial broadcasting would take. Most likely, politics had the biggest impact leading to a delay of almost three decades before the second commercial channel became a reality.<ref name="tbsseefour"/>

One benefit of the late arrival of the channel was that its frequency allocations at each transmitter had already been arranged in the early 1960s when the launch of an "ITV2" was anticipated.<ref name="tbsseefour"/> This led to good coverage across most of the country and few problems of interference with other UK-based transmissions; a stark contrast to the difficulties associated with [[Channel 5 (British TV channel)|Channel 5]]'s launch almost 15 years later.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1231802.stm|title=Channel 5 turns four |date=30 March 2001|work=BBC News|access-date=20 July 2019|archive-date=30 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210430125641/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1231802.stm|url-status=live}}</ref>