What. Cable has only been available in cities and you could get the OTA Chanel’s.
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gdbjr@lemmy.world 2 days agoCable tv wasn’t invented to have zero ads . The original selling point of cable tv was to provide broadcast tv to those that couldn’t pick up OTA broadcasts.
Auli@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
gdbjr@lemmy.world 1 day ago
What? Not everyone lives in or near a metro area. Some people live in valleys or mountains where an OTA signal doesn’t reach. I should know that is where I grew up.
Plus if you read up on the history of cable TV you will find that it was invented for just those reasons.
“At the outset, cable systems only served smaller communities without television stations of their own, and which could not easily receive signals from stations in cities because of distance or hilly terrain”
It isn’t that hard to read up on it and understand the history. Instead I guess just downvote because you don’t like the answer.
shalafi@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I feel like you weren’t there, in that time and place. Or maybe you were in some weird pocket where OTA wasn’t available? Can’t remember anyone bitching about lack of antennae service. Yeah, it could be sketchy, but I think most of us could drag in ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS.
gdbjr@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I grew up in the 70’s and had cable TV as soon as long as I could remember and it was the exact same broadcasts people that lived in DC or Baltimore got, we just got them from cable since the mountains we lived in prevented any OTA from getting through. And I am pretty sure I wasn’t alone with my cable TV.
In 1968, 6.4% of Americans had cable television. The number increased to 7.5% in 1978. By 1988, 52.8% of all households were using cable. The number further increased to 62.4% in 1994. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television)
I think one could argue they invented cable TV so that more people could see ads, not to stop showing ads.
kemsat@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Well radio was originally mostly about advertising, and when TV came around it was just gonna be radio but with moving pictures! So yeah, it was about spreading more advertisements around to more people.