How did cable television develop?
The earliest cable television systems were developed in the late 1940s to improve the reception of commercial programming in rural areas. In the 1960s it was expanded to urban areas where reception could also be poor. This led to the creation of independent cable networks such as Home Box Office (HBO), which started to beam its signals to customers on a subscription basis. At the time it was considered a radical concept to have audiences pay directly for the programming rather than having it wholly supported through advertising and syndication fees. Beginning in 1975, cable networks began reaching their audiences by satellite but the industry itself remained tightly regulated and controlled. In 1984 the cable industry was officially deregulated due to the high cost of wiring cities for cable access, leaving cable operators free to set their own fees. In 1992 the Federal Communications…
