CABLE-QUEST.COM

Cable television was born of an effort to battle poor reception of over-the-air broadcast signals. In the late forties, communities that were having trouble picking up airwaves from television broadcasters set up a centralized antenna on a high point such as a hill or mountaintop. These community based antenna were then connected to homes with cables to improve the reception of local stations to their televisions.
In the late fifties, cable controllers found that they were able to provide not only better access to local programming, but were also able to bring in new programming choices with their ability to pick up signals from far away stations. This is really the point in which the role of the cable provider started shifting.
By the sixties, there were over 800 cable stations providing content to over 800,000 customers. Some of the large corporations of the day were actively involved and investing in the cable industry by this time, like Cox and Westinghouse, but their influence in events was soon to be stymied by the FCC. Local broadcasters were feeling very threatened by the invasion of distant signals, and felt that this unwelcome competition needed to be regulated. The FCC set restrictions on the cable companies, effectively stopping their growth in it’s tracks. It would take another decade for any further development in the cable industry.
In 1972 deregulation began to degrade the FCC’s oversight on the cable industry and Charles Dolan and Gerald Levin of Sterling Manhattan Cable created HBO, the first pay-to-watch television station. This then led to satellites being used as a distribution network for cable television. The whole industry changed with the introduction of satellites, and growth in the field exploded exponentially.
Wired cable came to America in the mid 80′s to early 90′s when close to 15 million was spent connectiong every household to a cable provider. Over 50 million customers were now receiving over 75 cable channels. This explosive growth in television watching options has not slowed either. As of 2011 there are hundreds of cable options including pay-per-view and music channels.