The history of cable television began in 1948, in Pennsylvania. As it often happens, a new invention appeared by accident. A town in which John Wilson lived, is surrounded by mountains on all sides, so watching television using standard antennas was impossible. Since Mr. Wilson’s main business was selling TVs, things went bad. In order to demonstrate the possibilities of his product, John placed a television set on top of the highest mountain and connected his TVs to it. He ran a cable from the TV receiver to his shop and successfully displayed his goods. Anyone who bought TVs at Wilson’s store asked him to run a television cable into their homes. Thus the first cable television emerged and inspired the world for the creation of a vast network.
The most significant year for cable television was 1972 when the first true cable channel began broadcasting on a paid basis (“A Brief History of Cable”). This channel became HBO (HomeBoxOffice) – a famous channel that still exists and pleases the audience with exciting shows. Later, HBO’s cable channel had many competitors. For example, in 1976, Ted Turner founded a channel that later became TBS and marked the beginning of the CNN empire.
In the late 1990s, the market was completely taken over by cable companies. Rapidly evolving cable television technologies have created opportunities to increase the number of channels a TV viewer can watch. It provided a significant rise in the popularity of cable. Moreover, a little later, cables introduced a high-speed Internet connection. All these facilities, however, are quite expensive, so new generations are switching to streaming services. Cable companies, in turn, in order not to lose revenues, prioritize the provision of Internet services. The future of cable television depends entirely on consumers.
Work Cited
“A Brief History of Cable: Creating and Cutting the Cord.”YouTube, 2017. Web.