 The first was the grant of licences, following a competitive franchising procedure, for the provision of services over a new broadband cable system in a specified geographical area.Franchises were to be exclusive, and were granted after examination of the applicants' financial capacity and their plans, according to a series of criteria laid down in the Act of Parliament.By the end of the Authority's life, 136 cable franchises had been awarded, embracing about 15 million homes of the 22 million in the UK.