TV channels British Virgin Islands

The British Virgin Islands are small in territory and audience, but their television serves the whole archipelago - from Tortola to Virgin Gorda - with local news, community events and worship. The territory counts around sixty islands and cays, of which about sixteen are inhabited, and fewer than thirty thousand people call them home.

Television arrived early for such a small community. The territory's first station, ZBTV, began broadcasting from Road Town in November 1973 on channel 5, filling its schedule largely with American series alongside church programming; for decades it remained the islands' only over-the-air voice, with a cable company bringing in the networks of the wider world.

The local channel

CBN TV is the islands' local general channel, carrying news and public affairs of the territory. It is the television service of the Caribbean Broadcast Network, a locally owned company based in Road Town which took over local broadcasting in 2005, replacing the old ZBTV. Its schedule mixes local entertainment, news and sport with religious programming and films - the everyday mirror of a British Overseas Territory where most people live on Tortola and ferries link the outer islands.

Faith programming

CBN Gospel is its faith-based sister, serving the strong church life of the islands with worship services and gospel programming. Church is central here: the large majority of the population identifies as Christian, with Methodist, Anglican, Church of God and Seventh-day Adventist congregations among the largest, and faith broadcasting has been part of local television since the earliest ZBTV schedules.

Print and radio keep the same intimate scale: two weekly newspapers, The Island Sun and The BVI Beacon, and a handful of FM stations share the territory's attention with its television. The calendar peaks with the Spring Regatta each April, a week of racing that has drawn crews from around the world since 1972. When Hurricane Irma struck the islands directly in September 2017, local media carried the territory through the emergency and its long recovery. Together they serve a community spread across dozens of islands, where local broadcasting keeps the territory connected.