Cable TV

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Cable TV

Considering the fact that in the late 1990s many experts view existing television cables as the technological groundwork for what may be the most important and far reaching media innovations since the printing press, the origins of cable television are quite humble. In the early 1950s millions of Americans were beginning to regularly tune in their television sets. However, a large number of Americans in rural areas were not able to get any reception. Just as these folks wanted TV, so too did television companies want them, for the more people that watched, the more money the networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) and their advertisers made. Hence, the advent of community antennae television (CATV), commonly known as "cable TV," a system in which television station signals are picked up by elevated antennas and delivered by cables to home receivers. By the late 1990s the majority of American households were cable subscribers. Because of cable's rise to prominence, the ways in which Americans are entertained have been irrevocably transformed. Furthermore, many people think that in the twenty-first century new innovations utilizing cable technology will lead to revolutionary changes in the ways in which Americans live their daily lives.

In the early years of cable many saw it as an additional venue through which to offer more viewing choices to consumers. But for the most part, in the 1950s and 1960s the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was reluctant to grant licenses to cable operators, ostensibly due to fear of putting the mostly local UHF stations out of business. It is likely, however, that pressure on the FCC from the networks, who didn't want additional competition, also played a role in the FCC's reluctance to grant licenses to cable operators. While there was some optimism about the possibilities for cable TV in the early 1950s, in the early 1960s the progress of cable television was slowed to a near standstill by a series of court cases. At issue was whether or not the FCC had control over cable broadcasts, which were transmitted through cables rather than airwaves. Cable companies were literally pirating the broadcasts of local stations, which legitimately threatened their existence. Although the cable industry won some early cases, heavy pressure from the networks resulted in the FCC declaring itself as having jurisdiction over cable broadcasts. Cable companies fought the ruling, but the courts upheld it. The FCC established prohibitive regulations that severely limited cable TV's growth potential, thus protecting the financial interests of local stations and, more importantly, the networks.

However, in 1972 the FCC finally began allowing satellite transmissions to be used by cable TV operators, which resulted in the beginning of the cable revolution when a small Time Warner subsidiary named Home Box Office (HBO) transmitted the motion picture Sometimes a Great Notion over a cable system in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Although it would be three years before HBO became a national presence, that first transmission altered forever the shape of American television by paving the way for commercial cable service, which first became widely available to consumers in 1976. Early cable customers generally had to have a satellite dish in order to pick up the signals. The dish provided a better picture than traditional TV, as well as a greater number of stations, but it proved to be cost prohibitive to too many customers for it to be financially successful. Cable providers quickly adapted and created a system in which a cable could be attached to just about anyone's TV, provided one lived in an area where cable TV was available. Providers soon realized that most people would willingly pay a monthly fee for better reception and more channels. Public demand for cable TV grew so fast that companies could barely keep up with demand. In 1972 there were only 2,841 cable systems nationwide. By 1995 that number had grown to 11,215. Concurrently, the percentage of households subscribing to cable service jumped from 16.6 percent in 1977 to nearly 70 percent in 1998.

By the mid-1970s the commercial possibilities of cable became apparent. The problem for cable operators was how to attract an audience to their channels when the networks were already free and in nearly every home in America. Conversely, the networks could see that cable would only become more prevalent. The question for them was how could they get in on the cable bonanza. The solution was both ingeniously simple and immensely profitable. The networks agreed to sell their old shows to the cable networks, who would in turn run them endlessly; thus was born the concept of "syndication." For a while this arrangement worked quite well. The networks, on the basis of their original programming, continued to dominate the market, especially during the lucrative 8 PM to 11 PM time slot known as "Prime Time" because of the amount of people (consumers) that watch during those hours. The cable networks were able to enjoy profitability because even though they paid exorbitant franchise fees for the rights to broadcast the networks' old shows, they didn't have to invest in costly production facilities.

As a result of this arrangement between networks and cable operators, an interesting thing happened among the American populace. Whereas previous generations of TV viewers were generally only aware of the TV shows that originated during the lifetime, beginning in the late 1970s Americans became TV literate in a way they had never been before. Americans who came of age after the rise of cable soon became generally conversant in all eras of television programming. Fifteen year olds became just as capable of discussing the nuances of The Honeymooners, I Love Lucy, and Star Trek as they were the shows of their own era. Partly because of cable, television trivia has become shared intelligence in America; however, this shared cultural knowledge is not necessarily a good thing, for it has, for many, been learned in lieu of a more traditional and useful humanistic and/or scientific education. Accordingly, in the late 1990s Americans are collectively more uninformed about the world in which they live than at any other time in the twentieth century, which can be attributed at least in part to the fact that most Americans spend much more time watching TV than they do reading all forms of printed media combined. Cable was originally thought to have great potential as an educational tool. But even though there are a few cable networks that educate as well as entertain, for the most part cable stations are just as subservient to advertising dollars as their network counterparts. As a result, advertising dollars play a large role in dictating the direction of cable programming, just as they do on network television.

For a number of years cable networks were content to run a combination of old network programming, a mix of relatively new and old Hollywood movies, and occasional pay-per-view events such as concerts and sporting events. The first cable network to gain a national foothold was Ted Turner's TBS "Superstation," which ran a format similar to that of the networks, sans original programming. But by the early 1980s it became clear to most cable operators that in order to achieve the financial success they desired cable channels were going to have to come up with their own programming. Thus was born the greatest period of television programming innovation seen to that point. Since their ascent to television dominance in the early 1950s, the networks attempted to appeal to as a wide a general audience as possible. The cable networks correctly assumed that they couldn't compete with the networks by going after the same type of broad audience. Instead, they followed the example set by radio after the rise of television in the early 1950s: they developed specific subject formats that mixed syndicated and original programming and attracted demographically particular target audiences for their advertisers. Americans quickly had access to an unprecedented quantity of television stations; unfortunately, in most cases television's quality did not rise concurrently.

Nevertheless, many of the resulting stations have contributed significantly to the direction of American popular culture. The herald of cable TV's importance to popular culture was a channel known as Music Television, or MTV. Started in 1981, its rise to success was as meteoric as it was astonishing. For American youth MTV became their network, the network that provided the soundtrack for the trials and tribulations of youths everywhere. Michael Jackson and Madonna's status as cultural icons would not be so entrenched were it not for their deft use of MTV as a medium for their videos. Beavis and Butthead would have never caused such a ruckus among concerned parents were it not for MTV. And the music industry, which was flagging in the early 1980s, might not have survived were it not for MTV, which was a virtual non-stop advertisement for recording artists. Neither the "grunge" revolution started in the early 1990s by the incessant playing of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video nor the ensuing gangster rap, hip hop, and swing movements would have occurred were it not for MTV. The trademark jump cutting found in MTV videos has crossed over to become common place in network television and Hollywood movies. But perhaps the most important realization was for advertisers, who suddenly had unlimited access to a youthful audience never before thought to be a viable consumer market. MTV's audience specific success opened the floodgates for the cable channels that followed.

Among the many cable channels that have made their mark on American culture are the themed channels such as ESPN and ESPN 2, Court TV, C-SPAN, The Weather Channel, Comedy Central, Black Entertainment Television, The Animal Channel, Lifetime, Arts & Entertainment, and the Food Channel. In addition, seemingly countless news channels have followed on the heels of Ted Turner's Cable News Network (CNN), which made its debut in 1980. There are also a number of shopping channels, on which companies can not only hawk their products, but sell them directly to the people as well. For advertisers, cable has greatly increased access to the American buying public, which has resulted in immense profits.

And yet, despite its inarguably providing countless and diverse contributions to popular culture, ranging from the wall to wall televising of O.J. Simpson's murder trial and President Clinton's impeachment to a mainstream venue for South Park, The Simpsons, and endless wrestling events, many find it difficult to characterize cable's overall contribution to American culture as positive. Clearly television is an incredible medium for entertainment and advertising, but as William F. Baker and George Dessart argue in Down the Tube: An Inside Account of the Failure of American Television, that it should be used almost exclusively for such purposes is a tragedy. Regrettably, television's potential as an educational tool has never been realized. For every Ken Burns documentary there are a hundred episodes of The Jerry Springer Show. As a result, the rise of cable has only increased the size of the vast wasteland that is television.

After the success of so many cable stations, the networks realized they were missing out on the financial gold mine. They profited from the sale of their shows to cable networks, but the real money came from ownership. However, it was illegal for a network to own a cable system. But in 1992 the FCC dropped this regulation; the networks could now own cable systems. What followed was literally a feeding frenzy, as the networks both battled with each other to buy existing cable networks and scrambled to start their own. What resulted was the illusion of even greater choice for the American viewing public. Although there were way more channels, there weren't appreciably more owners due to the fact that the networks quickly owned many of the cable systems. Despite their claims to the contrary, in actuality, in the late 1990s the networks controlled television almost as much as they always had.

In 1992 Vice President Al Gore began singing the praises of "the information superhighway," a synthesis of education, goods, and services to be delivered through American televisions via existing cable systems. Cable has always offered the possibility of two-way communications. With the proper devices, Americans could send out information through their cables as well as receive it. The technology was not new, but its implementation was. Although at the time Gore was considered by many to be a futuristic dreamer, industry insiders quickly saw that two-way, or "interactive," TV could be the wave of the future. By incorporating interactive technology, cable TV could transform American TVs into incredible machines capable of being a TV, a computer, a superstore, a stereo, a library, a school, a telephone, a post office, a burglar alarm, and a fire alarm all at once. However, a relatively obscure computer network known as the "internet" already utilized two way phone lines to provide its users with interactive ability. The phone companies saw the internet's potential and beat cable TV to the punch. By the late 1990s the internet was in as many as half of all American homes and businesses. But phone lines aren't as effective at transferring information as cables. Fortunately for the phone companies, FCC deregulation in the early 1990s made it possible for them to own cable networks as well. Whether we want it or not, it is just a matter of time before interactivity comes to American televisions. But, judging by how fast and pervasively the once free form internet became commercialized, it is hard to say whether interactive TVs will change lives for the better or just intensify the already oppressive amount of advertising to which Americans are constantly subjected.

In addition to the networks and phone companies buying cable networks, in the early 1990s other corporations began purchasing the networks and phone companies. The reign of independent cable mavericks such as Ted Turner gave way to a new age of corporate cable barons. By the late 1990s cable and network television was largely controlled by a half dozen massive media conglomerates, one of which is Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., which owns countless companies, including Twentieth Century Fox studios, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Fox Television. The money making possibilities for corporations like Murdoch's are virtually endless. For example, Fox TV not only features new episodes of its own original shows, such as The X Files and The Simpsons, it also runs them endlessly once they're syndicated. The L.A. Dodgers frequently appear on Fox's Major League Baseball broadcasts. And Twentieth Century Fox feature films routinely make their television debuts on Fox TV. All of these activities result in profits for the parent company, Fox News Corp. Furthermore, corporate ownership can threaten what integrity TV has, as evidenced in the summer of 1998 when Disney, which owns ABC, reportedly killed a negative ABC Nightly News story about how Disney World's lack of background checks resulted in their hiring criminals. Although the ownership of television was largely in the hands of relatively few monopolies, in the late 1990s there was growing public and government rumblings about the increasing "conglomeratization" of America, which led to the backlash and subsequent anti-trust case against Bill Gates's Microsoft Corporation. But as of 1999 cable television's many channels are in the hands of a few and, despite appearances, Americans' TV options remain quite limited.

As James Roman writes in Love, Light, and a Dream: Television's Past, Present, and Future, the pioneers of cable television "could never have realized the implications their actions would come to have on the regulatory, economic, and technological aspects of modern communications in the United States." In 1999 cable television is America's dominant entertainment and information medium, and, due to the fact that 70 percent of Americans subscribe to some form of cable TV, will remain so for the foreseeable future. For cable subscribers, the future is approaching at breakneck speed. Without consulting the public, the conglomerates have already made their decisions concerning the direction of cable TV; in only a few short years fully interactive television will almost certainly become a reality and American life, for better or worse, will likely experience changes in ways not yet imagined. And what about the 30 percent of those for whom cable, either for financial or geographical reasons, is not an option? Will they be able to compete in an increasingly interactive world or will they be permanently left behind? Will the advent of interactive TV create yet another social group, the technologically disadvantaged, for whom a piece of the pie is not a realistic aspiration? Is it at all possible that the people who have cable will defy all prognostications and not embrace the new technologies that will purportedly change their lives for the better? As of 1999 these remain unanswerable questions but it is likely that the direction of American popular culture in the early twenty-first century will be dictated by their outcome.

—Robert C. Sickels