TheHistoryOf.net

This is the history of cable TV – a history that’ll probably spark many memories for baby boomers. For baby boomers are the TV generation. They grew up as TV grew. So we’d like to present a little flashback – both Canadian and American – to help you remember those days when TV was a luxury, not a necessity. Sit back, and remember. And for those of you who aren’t that old, sit back with your parents.

Perhaps you’ll wonder why they’re smiling, or even laughing. Just ask them – they’ll tell you all about the history of cable TV. But, in the meantime, check out this history of cable TV, and you’ll get an idea of where it came from, and perhaps where it’s going.

Canadians have the biggest first

In 1952, when cable TV first entered Canada, there were only 146,000 TVs in the country. Three cities – London, Vancouver and Montreal had cable TV systems. On September 6th of that year, Montreal transmitted the first broadcast on CBFT. Two days later, CBC broadcast their first broadcast on DBLT from Toronto. Each station offered 3 hours of programming per day. These 2 stations figured that they could, together, reach about 30% of Canadian homes…if they had TVs.

The following year, 1953, TV expanded to reach 10% of Canadian homes – about 373,000 TVs. CBC had expanded their schedule to 30 hours a week. They were even fortunate enough to broadcast Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation.

In 1954, the number of Canadian viewers increased to 1 million. By the way, TV advertising was at full strength with such products as Swanson’s TV dinners; their first offering was turkey at a cost of 95 cents.

By 1957, prime time Nielsen ratings were strongly influencing programming on TV. One of their discoveries was that Texaco Star Theatre and the Jack Benny Show were the most popular shows of the early 50’s. By this time, 39% of Canadian households owned TV sets. Network broadcasting also gained audiences with their coverage of major events such as the opening of the Canadian Parliament by a reigning monarch, and the Grey Cup final, attracting 4-8 million viewers.

1958 marked a major step for Canada – CBC’s microwave network is extended from Victoria, B.C. to Halifax and Sydney, N.S., giving Canada the longest TV network in the world.

The following year, 1959, saw Newfoundland joining the national network, as well as the debut of Bonanza, with Canadian actor, Lorne Greene. CTV (the Canadian Television Network) was established in 1961. There weren’t a lot of changes for a few years, but in 1967, there was a big one – the first color TVs in Canada.

With the increase of TVs and cable systems, the government saw the need for regulations to make sure they were “kept in check”. Hence the creation of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in 1968. That same year, the first nationally-televised debate among Canadian political party leaders attracted an audience of 9 million viewers. That was special programming at the time, because the most popular programs were movies and sitcoms.

In 1969, in their continuing quest to control Canadians’ lifestyles, the CBC announced that all tobacco advertising was discontinued as their existing contracts expired.

Then, by 1972, TV was becoming a way of life – 97% of Canadians had at least one TV, and 26% had cable. Canada launched its own cable satellite, Anik II. Meanwhile, Nielsen ratings, for 5 consecutive years, had the social sitcom as the number one choice for viewers. 1975 had TV cameras in the Canadian Senate on an experimental basis, showing excerpts on newscasts.

By 1982, 98% of Canadian households had at least one TV set, while 58% had cable. The CRTC licensed the first pay services – C Channel, The Movie Network, SuperChannel and SuperEcran. The following year, in the interest of increasing viewership, the Canadian Captioning Development Agency began providing captioning services to benefit about 2.2 million hearing-impaired Canadians.

Now the search for more variety in viewing was on – in 1984, the CRTC approved the delivery of up to 5 U.S. specialty services to Canadians. By 1987, they added 3 English-language and 5 French-language services to their repertoire.

A major development in 1988 saw MuchMusic and RDS (the French sports network) become a part of extended or basic cable packages. Also, CBC Newsworld was licensed for distribution on basic cable. The following year, TSN (The Sports Network) joined MuchMusic on extended or basic cable.

A major breakthrough in cable was made in 1990 when Rogers Cablesystems started using a hybrid fiber coaxial distribution network, which would eventually become the standard throughout North America. This technology allows for rapid and cost-effective interactive TV and advanced digital services, thus producing greatly reduced standard access and download times for the Internet from minutes to seconds.

It’s 1991, and TV’s are a way of life – 9.8 million Canadian households have at least one TV set, while 77% have cable. During the next year, 1991, the cable industry took over operation of the parliamentary channel from CBC, thus creating CPAC (Cable Public Affairs Channel), which broadcasts unedited, uninterrupted coverage of House of Commons sessions.

By this time, cable providers wanted to give more to their viewers – and, of course, make more money. As a result, in 1994, the CRTC held hearings for 50 applications for new specialty service licenses, and issued licenses to 8 new specialty services and 2 new pay-tv services. The real benefits of cable were reached in 1995 when Cable in the Classroom was developed, helping students learn media literacy skills.

Digital services were first introduced in 1997, when Shaw Cable launched its digital service in Canada, distributing more than 70,000 digital cable boxes in Calgary and Toronto. Now TV had almost taken over as a necessary part of Canadians’ lifestyle. By 1998, 11.5 million Canadians had at least one TV set, with 68% connected to cable.

At the end of year 2000, the CRTC had licensed 16 English-language and 5 French-language digital specialty TV services, and about 60 new channels were offered to Canadian viewers. Then, as cable technology advanced, urban and rural areas were able to connect through the cable broadband network, giving Canada the enviable position of being one of the most connected nations in the world, surpassing the U.S. in service availability. By this time, 1.5 million Canadian’s had cable high-speed Internet access, while 1 million subscribed to digital cable TV.

The United States has similar success with Cable TV

Moving south across the border, the United States was making it’s own progress in the cable TV industry. In 1948, Robert Tarlton is credited with building the first cable system in the U.S., with the express purpose of charging a monthly fee for service. Jim Y. Davidson of Tuckerman, Ark. signed his first CATV (Community Antenna Television) subscriber, which CATV Magazine reported "was the initiation of telecasts from Memphis - the first station operational in the mid-South. Mr. Davidson was ready with a 100-foot tower atop a two-story building, which feeds 17 outlets to his Tuckerman appliance store…plus the single residential customer who pays $3.00 per month for the service.”

Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) put a 4-year freeze on licensing new broadcast stations, which created an opportunity for CATV systems to bring TV to communities. The freeze obviously served its purpose – by 1952, 14,000 homes were subscribing to CATV.

Over the next few years, small community cable systems are opened all across the country. The Casper, Wyo. CATV system was one of the first to use microwave relay systems to bring distant TV signals (in this case, from Denver stations) to a cable system.

Cable converters were made by Jerrold Electronics Corporation. In 1958, they marketed an All-Channel Broad band amplifier for channels 2-13 (Jerrold 2300), and well as the ABC (All-Band Cascader) covering channels 1-13 plus FM. These converters were the beginning ideas that led to the modern-day remote controls. Great inventions – right guys?

As the 1960s arrived, so did competition for the growing cable market. Telephone companies entered the CATV business in both construction and operations. There’s a high public interest in cable – by 1963, 1200 cable systems were serving more than a million homes, a figure that rose to 2260 systems serving more than 3.6 millions homes, by 1969.

One of the first heavyweight fights carried on a cable system was the Floyd Patterson-Ingamer Johannson event on March 12, 1961. It was offered free to all customers in TelePrompTer's recently purchased Elmira, New York system. Customers who didn’t have cable, but had already signed up and were waiting for installation, were invited to see the fight at the local theater on a big screen projector. New York Telephone reluctantly agreed to allow the event, in spite of the contract terms that stated "no Pay TV," because the event was free.

Satellites change the face of the industry

In 1973, Satellite TV broadcasting spread to the U.S. TelePrompTer Corporation, HBO and Scientific-Atlanta joined to give the first demonstration of satellite-delivered programs in the U.S. This demonstration, held at the NCTA convention in Anaheim, utilized the Canadian Anik II satellite. Industry executives were able to watch the U.S. House of Representatives’ Speaker, Carl Albert, speaking in Washington, D.C.

Actual distribution of satellite programming began when HBO showed the Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier fight on Sept. 30. In 1976, Ted Turner's "Watch This Channel Grow" (WTCG) in Atlanta, became the first satellite-delivered broadcast station.

Now, with all this new programming available, converters were becoming more sophisticated. Remember the Jerrold 35-channel converter? It became the industry standard for cable construction and operation. Was this the beginning of the “couch potato”?

Cable system construction became very active. Most companies had recovered from the 1974 recession and had begun building systems in the franchises granted in the early '70s. HBO's uncut, commercial-free movies helped spur cable TV customers’ 28% growth in 1975 to more than 11 million customers. Media giants, corporations and the financial community became major players in cable TV’s growth.

During the period between 1978 and 1982, increased channel capacity allowed for additional programming services, featuring sports programming, and programming for specific interest groups, such as children, families, women, minorities, etc. New networks included Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN), Cable News Network (CNN), Showtime, USA Network, Madison Square Garden (MSG), Black Entertainment Television (BET), Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), Nickelodeon and Music Television (MTV). In April 1979, superstations WGN, Chicago, and WOR, New York, were distributed via satellite to cable systems across the country.

By 1981, cable revenues had exceeded $3.6 billion. This is due partly to the success of Pay-TV services – where pay penetration can reach 200-300%, meaning customers take two to three premium services plus basic cable programming. Then a second wave of new networks sweeps the industry with a wider variety of programming. The Disney Channel, Lifetime, Playboy, Financial News Network, The Weather Channel, Discovery Channel, Home Shopping Network, Nashville Network, Arts & Entertainment, American Movie Classics, regional sports channels, and Pay Per View (PPV) channels were introduced. Competitive distribution technologies emerged, including Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) and Subscription Television (STV). So it was no surprise that by 1985, 6600 cable systems were serving more than 41.5 million households, which is nearly 50% of homes.

By 1986, the backyard satellite dish and digital TV industry had grown to 2 million owners, mostly because, although the huge receivers were expensive ($2,000 - $3,000), the programming was free. HBO, seeing that it was losing revenue, became the first service to scramble its signals full-time, bringing in a new age of security in program distribution.

Cable revenues continued to increase, reaching $2 billion by 1989. Total industry revenues exceeded $15 billion, with more than 52 million cable customers and 9050 cable systems. And with all that money the industry was making, they looked for opportunities to give back to the communities. Their answer, in 1989, was Cable in the Classroom, a public service initiative of local cable companies and national cable networks. It provided commercial-free educational programming to schools across the country at no cost. Members agreed to provide free installation and free basic service to public and private junior and senior high schools.

By 1991, annual cable revenues had reached nearly $20 billion, 17.1 million homes had cable, and cable ad revenues had exceeded $2.9 billion. More Canadian influence emerged in 1994, when MuchMusic, the alternative concept in music TV, debuted in the U.S. through a partnership between Rainbow and the Chum Television Group of Toronto. Bravo, in partnership with the Chum Television Group, was awarded one of 6 licenses for Canadian distribution and launched Bravo!

In 1995, increased awareness of programming from DIRECTV satellite network systems subsequently increased the number of cable customers to more than 62.1 million, with 2.2 million authorized DBS customers. In 1998, broadcast HDTV and cable modems were in high demand. Digital cable exceeded expectations, growing to at least 1.5 million households by the end of the year. And by the end of 1999, that number had grown to an estimated 5.1 million.

The cable TV industry was booming. In 2001, Canada was again leading the way - Rogers Cable Inc. launched the largest HDTV offering by a cable operator in Canada, offering customers up to 8 channels of HDTV programming, the widest selection of any cable or satellite company to date. By then, the worldwide sales of digital set-top boxes (for cable, satellite, and terrestrial platforms) reached 36 million, up from the 28 million sold in 2000.

Continuing to be on the leading edge, Rogers Cable became the first Canadian cable provider to launch VOD (video on demand) in February, 2002, to selected Toronto customers. By the end of 2002, nearly 37 million homes had HDTV, or 1 in 3 homes. Cable modem customers topped 11 million, accounting for 64% of all high-speed internet customers nationwide.

And that brings us to today. And next time you’re sitting watching TV, think about the history of cable TV and how it affects what you’re watching. And if you’re a Canadian, you can be proud that you were first...in something.

About The Author

Gareth Marples is a successful writer providing tips and advice for consumers. His numerous articles offer moneysaving tips and valuable insight on typically confusing topics.