Cable Television

Cable Television started the multichannel revolution that, with the introduction of CNN in 1980, transformed television news from a nightly half hour to the perpetually present and highly competitive realm of cable news. However, that was a much later culmination of a history of policy and technological changes. Cable television first arose in the United States in the decade after World War II, as the major broadcast networks and much of the country turned to television. Difficulties (chiefly interstation interference and an underestimation of the demand for licenses) with the FCC's initial channel allocation scheme led to a “Freeze” from 1948 to 1952, during which no new television licenses were awarded. Coverage by those stations on the air was spotty, and many communities found their reception blocked by geographic features, or hindered by distance. With demand for television growing, the gap was filled by the pioneering entrepreneurs who built the first community antenna television (CATV) systems in Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Colorado to bring TV signals to homes and businesses. This nascent, wired, distribution system set the stage for an alternative to terrestrial broadcast television, a system that after several transformations has become the dominant mechanism for video distribution in America.

From the beginning, CATV extended the range of local television broadcasts, and was generally seen as a boon to those stations carried, as it expanded audiences and viewership. After 1952, as more stations went on the air, consumer demand for new channels and programming grew. People generally liked having a choice of what programs to view. Some systems began providing additional signals to their customers, either by importing more distant television stations or, more rarely at first, by providing their own programming. Combinations of coax and microwave distribution networks were developed in several regions to import distant stations. Technology (limited channel capacity) and economics (the cost of programming) limited the scope of these efforts; still, a now worried broadcasting industry convinced the FCC to impose programming limits on prospective cable-only channels and restrictions on the importation of distant stations, in addition to other regulations designed to slow cable's expansion. Despite this, early cable saw a slow, steady growth through the 1960s, although largely confined to smaller towns and rural areas.

Imported distant stations started cable's shift from a limited CATV role to a more expansive role as a Multichannel Video Programming Service (MVPS). Distant stations and local programming offered some additional choice, but by the mid-1970s, satellite distribution of video was becoming economically viable. Partly as a response to that, and partly in reaction to some federal court decisions challenging the FCC's assumptions about the impact of cable on broadcasting, regulations changed, allowing the birth and growth of cable networks. Within a decade, dozens of new cable [Page 243]networks were available. By 2000, more than 250 nationally distributed cable networks were available to cable systems in the United States.

Among those early cable networks were CNN and ESPN. Each was a prototypical niche network, taking an existing program type offered (in a limited way) by traditional television, and providing a dedicated 24-hour channel for interested viewers. Yet their impact went far beyond an initially minimal audience share. CNN as a full time, around the clock, news channel changed the way that both the industry and audiences thought about television news. It brought the potential for immediacy and depth of coverage, arguably changing the news cycle and feeding the growing consumer interest in news. At the very least it expanded audience choice—not only across a growing number of networks, but in letting audiences have news whenever they wanted. CNN's eventual success encouraged the growth of a number of other cable news networks, both within the domestic U.S. market and in the international arena.

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