The History of Cable TV

 In the world that we live in today, technology has changed the way we adapt to the world in every aspect. After a long day of work, you come home, get settled in, sit down in your favorite chair, pick up the remote and browse through the millions of different channels there is to offer. Cable Television has given us a wide variety of options to see from the news, sports, entertainment, and so much more. Thanks to cable tv, there is more diverse content to watch that connects to our interests and has revolutionized the way we watch tv forever. How did all of this come to be? Who was the genius who came up with such an amazing idea? What issues occurred? Most of us probably do not even know the answers to these questions, but in this blog, I will be informing you of the history of cable television and how this invention changed our world.

How Did Cable TV Come to be?

John Walson Sr, born in Forest City, Pennsylvania, was one of the first cable operators in the United States. Walson's passion for electronics early on in his life led him to have a career where he had a General Electric franchise in 1945. About two years of starting his franchise, he sold tv sets, but the issue with selling tv sets was that the Philadelphia network stations could not reach Mahanoy City because the towns were located near the mountains. The network stations were nearly 90 miles away, so Walson decided to construct an antenna tower. This would lead to Mahanoy City being the first community in America to have an antenna tv system and Walson's business turned into a success. By the late 1950s, cable operators wanted to use their skills to pick up broadcast signals from more than 100 miles away. Cable would then go from transmitting local signals to giving audiences more programming options. 

What Impacts did it Have?

By 1970, about 7.5 percent of television homes were cable subscribers and continued to rise since then.  Cable television led to many impacts on our world by working from distant signals areas and fixing the problem of areas that do not have many signals. It helped people see what they want no matter their location. Another impact was viewers could watch programs that suited them without watching the same programs every time. Cable networks provided viewers with hundreds of channels in different forms of entertainment. The diversity of choices given by cable helped change the way viewers watched television and motivated Americans to browse through multiple channels.  Cable tv also influenced communication through the news. Before cable tv, there were limited news channels on air, but ever since cable tv came into play, viewers have many options to pick their news sources. Tom Rosenstiel mentioned how cable tv news influenced today that outsized the people watching it. Popular news channels like CNN and Fox News help people with certain values in politics to connect and we see news anchors give their own personal insight about certain topics. Thanks to cable tv, people can see more opinions from different sources. 

Negative Effects?

While cable television did revolutionize the way we watch tv, there were some negative effects along the way. As cable tv rose to success, it posed a threat to over-the-air tv broadcasting. It put a divide of local audiences and led to a decline in local station revenue. This would affect broadcasters to lower their program and even get rid of the service available to those who are not subscribed to cable. Another problem is that since there are so many channels to watch from, it is affecting children because they spend more time watching tv than doing other activities. There are a lot more entertaining channels compared to educational channels. TV watching negative effects stem from light television entertainment that takes over other vitalizing activities such as reading for kids. 

In Conclusion... 

Cable television has given us an opportunity to watch whatever we want that interests us no matter where we are. It has also given us a diverse set of channels where people can express themselves, give opinions, and reach a certain audience that they desire without having viewers being limited to specific avenues. Without cable television, we would not be able to see what is really happening nearby or around the world. This invention transformed our society in a drastic way, and even though streaming services have taken much more popularity now, we still have cable tv to rely on no matter what. I personally use cable to watch the news or my favorite shows, and after learning how this invention came to be, I have a deeper appreciation for it now than before.