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Cable Television
History and Recent
Developments
When We Think of
Cable TV
We Think of ...
ESPN Highlights
MTV Videos
HBO Movies
But How Did Cable
TV Get Its Start?
Cable’s
Humble Beginnings
Began during the 1948-1952 TV
station "freeze" issued by FCC
Operated as an ancillary to
broadcast TV for first 20 years
Cable’s
Humble Beginnings
Slow, but steady growth
70 systems serving 14,000
subscribers in 1952
1,500 systems and 1.5 million
subscribers in mid 1960s
Cable as It Was
Cable was known as Community
Antenna Television (CATV)
Entrepreneurs built antenna
towers on top of buildings or mountains
Received TV signals
Sent signals of stations via
cable wire to customers’ homes
First Uses of CATV
CATV systems began in mountainous
areas of Pennsylvania and Oregon in 1948/49
CATV’s
Original Purpose
Sole Purpose: Deliver signals of
TV broadcast stations to cable customers
Customers received higher quality
reception
Customers received more stations
than normal
Early versions of CATV sent 5-6
channels
However, less than 1% of all TVs
used CATV (in 1950s)
Still Not "Cable" as We
Know It Today
CATV Evolves into
Cable TV (1967-83)
Began to originate programs
Began to import distant signals
FCC assumed jurisdiction over
cable
Cable TV Grows
Large company investors gradually
replaced small businesses as major owners of cable systems
There were 1,700 systems in 1967
and 5,600 in 1983
Cable TV Grows
And, national cable networks
began to appear
HBO was first national cable
network
It was pay TV
Why Cable Grew
The boom came in 1975 when
satellites made it possible to distribute programming nationwide
Technology advances allowed for
delivery of up to 20 channels
Then What?
Narrow-casting
became possible
ESPN (1979)
Sports Programming
CNN (1980)
All News Channel
MTV (1981)
Music Videos
How Did
Broadcasters Feel?
At first, broadcasters loved CATV
CATV acted as relays
Gave broadcasters extended reach
and more viewers
Later, cable was seen as a
competitor when augmenting and distant importing began
Cable Television
How It Works
Basic Components
National networks acquire,
produce and package programming
Local cable operators
package the cable networks and local broadcast stations for subscribers
UPN
WBN
USA
TBS
WGN
BET
Technical Bases
Why Cable’s
Called Cable
Cable TV is brought to homes with
coaxial cable
A wave-guide for
electromagnetic signals
Allows use of additional
frequencies
Prevents interference
Bandwidth is the amount of
info that can be sent via coaxial
Cable System
Architecture
(see image below)
Head-end
Distribution Plant
Cable
Electronics
Home Electronics
Head-end
Receives signals from various
sources
Off-air TV stations
Microwave transmissions
Satellite transmissions
Local origination
Head-end
Processes and Amplifies Signals
Transmits Signals to the System
("Downstream")
Cable
Microwave
Receives Signals from Subscribers
("Upstream")
Distribution Plant
Cable
Trunk
Feeder
Drop
Electronics
Amplifiers and power supplies
Traps
Trunk Cable
Heavy-duty coaxial cable that
distributes cable signal from head-end to neighborhoods
Feeder and Drop
Cable
Feeder lines take
programming from the trunk throughout the neighborhood
Drop lines connect feeder
lines to the household
Drawbacks of
Coaxial
The signal attenuates unless
amplified
Needs amplifiers almost every 200
yards
Limitations of amplifiers
prevents cable from delivering more than 60 channels
Needs expensive infrastructure
(i.e., intricate network of trunks, feeders, and drops)
Home Electronics
Converters
Returns frequencies so they are
"usable" for TV sets
Increases number of channels used
by sets (non-"cable ready")
Descrambles signals
Home Electronics
Upstream Response Technologies
Addressability
System can send signal to one
specific point
Can be one-way or two-way
Cable Modems
Optical Fibre and
Digital
Optical fibre began to replace
coaxial cable in the 1980s
Offered clearer video, lower
maintenance costs, and much greater bandwidth
1990s technology made digital
compression practical for use
Talk of 500-channel systems
"Video-on-demand"
Interactive services
Today’s Cable
Systems
Most subscribers are serviced by
one of the "huge" MSOs (Multiple System Operators) like TCI and Time Warner
Very few local cable systems
still in operation
Most cable systems are vertically
integrated
MSOs control all aspects of
programming
Gives them considerable power
with cable programmers
Future of the
Cable Industry
Mergers and competition from Baby
Bells and even local utilities
Competition = more choices and
lower costs to subscribers
Source: Smith, F. L., Wright, J. W., & Ostroff, D. H. (1999).
Perspectives on radio and television.
© B.L. Yates 2000
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