April 7, 1963, from a news report in the “New York Herald Tribune.” New-York Historical Society, Time Inc. Records, MS 3009.
The number of television sets in use in the United States increased from a few thousand to almost 60 million between 1945 and 1960. Despite the fact that many of the programs aired originated in New York City, many residents of Gotham had to deal with gradually deteriorating signal reception. New structures in the city’s vertically expanding city obstructed or reflected over-the-air signals, resulting in a blurred, speared, or distorted image. Living on the Upper West Side in the “BC (Before Cable) days,” one neighbor compared viewing television to “going sightseeing in a thick fog.” Building a Community Antenna Television (CATV) system was one of the answers to the problem. This meant putting up a master antenna in a good spot and then wiring coaxial wire from the antenna into individual residences, ensuring that the signal was not obstructed.
In 1962, New York City became the first city in the world to have cable television. Sterling Information Services, a subsidiary of Sterling Movies USA (later renamed Sterling Communications, Inc.), built a television studio and installed a coaxial cable system in that year, linking it to several hotels in Manhattan using the Empire City Subway Company’s existing ducts. Tourists and other out-of-town visitors may use the system to get information on the different events and attractions that New York has to offer. The service was extremely effective during the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair, which encouraged other big cities to adopt similar systems.
When did the city of New York obtain cable television?
“It’s really fulfilling for us to finally provide cable television to Brooklyn and Queens,” said Richard Aurelio, the president of BQ Cable and a former deputy mayor. “It took longer to get off the ground in New York than it did elsewhere, but that’s New York.”
Mayor Koch responded by saying that in New York, “we have measures in place to prevent favoritism and corruption.”
The entire city would not be wired for cable until the 1990s, according to city officials. While two additional cable companies hope to start service on Staten Island and Queens soon, officials said two other franchise holders are behind schedule and on the verge of defaulting on their city contracts.
Since 1965, when it was introduced as an attempt to avoid television interference caused by tall buildings, Manhattan has had cable television service.
Due to a mix of lawsuits, a lack of interest from the cable sector, and finance issues, cable service in the other boroughs was delayed. Some lawmakers and inhabitants of the boroughs outside of Manhattan have been enraged by its absence, and the circumstance has been the fodder for a generation of caricatures and jokes.
When was cable television initially made available to the general public?
In 1948, cable television became available in the United States for the first time. By 1989, 53 million American households had subscribed to cable television, with 60 percent of all American households having done so by 1992. with According to SNL Kagan data, around 58.4 percent of all American homes subscribed to basic cable television services in 2006. The majority of cable viewers in the United States are middle-class and live in the suburbs; cable television is less frequent in low-income, urban, and rural areas.
When did cable become a requirement?
Congress’s Policy and Rules in 1984 Ownership, channel usage, franchise provisions and renewals, subscriber prices and privacy, obscenity and lockboxes, unlawful receipt of services, equal employment opportunity, and pole attachments were all covered under the 1984 Cable Act.
When did cable become available in Brooklyn?
“Today’s deal between Cablevision and the City of Expanded York will ensure that Bronxites have the best possible service, new broadband access in many of our public parks, robust customer safeguards, and a dynamic presence on public access television,” Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. stated.
“This is a win-win situation for everyone involved, and I’m especially grateful that Cablevision was ready to come to the table and negotiate a solution that maintains their commitment to serving the Bronx as a good corporate citizen.”
“I am thrilled that this agreement will not only ensure that Brooklynites continue to receive the high-quality public access programming for which BRIC Arts | Media | Bklyn has become known, but will also provide additional funding that will result in even more programming and services,” said Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. “I’d like to thank BRIC Arts | Media | Bklyn, Time Warner, and Cablevision for their support of the critical role public access programming plays in our communities, and I’d like to thank Carlo Scissura, my chief of staff, for his tireless efforts in making this arrangement a reality.”
“This agreement provides multiple public goods that will translate into increased access to broadband services and information, greater interconnectedness, and will modernize telecommunications in New York City,” said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. “This agreement provides multiple public goods that will translate into increased access to broadband services and information, greater interconnectedness, and will modernize telecommunications in New York City.”
“This contract renewal will improve communications, public access, and help our libraries, parks, and other public places,” Queens Borough President Helen Marshall said.
“DoITT, Time Warner Cable, and Cablevision have collaborated on behalf of all New Yorkers with an eye to the future.” I’m glad to be a part of this rejuvenation, and I’m looking forward to reaping the rewards.
“I am glad that the City of New York and its cable television providers have reached renewal deals,” stated Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro.
Customers will benefit from improved services and access as a result of the arrangement.
“We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve struck a new franchise deal with the City of New York today,” said Howard Szarfarc, Regional Vice President for Operations at Time Warner Cable.
“
This operating license allows us to continue providing the most up-to-date information, entertainment, and technology to New Yorkers and local companies. As we’ve done recently with Start Over, Look Back, Whole House DVR, Wideband and Mobile Internet, and our new iPad app for live television, we’ll continue to bring out additional simple and popular services.
“We are delighted to have achieved a deal with the City of New York to renew these essential franchises,” said Lisa Rosenblum, Cablevision’s executive vice president for government and public relations.
“For more than two decades, Cablevision has provided significant value to residential and corporate clients in the Bronx and Brooklyn through its cutting-edge telecommunications services.
Cablevision looks forward to continuing to provide award-winning Optimum television, phone, and high-speed Internet solutions to its consumers in the Bronx and Brooklyn under these franchise agreements, which were constructed in accordance with the competitive climate.”
The cable franchise renewal agreements approved today will assist create a more vibrant market by establishing long-term, direct competition among the City’s cable television providers for the first time.
The historic citywide cable television franchise granted to Verizon by the City in 2008 paved the stage for this.
Time Warner Cable (TWC) is a cable company that
Northern and Southern Manhattan cable television licenses were first awarded in 1970, and were renewed in 1990 and 1998; Queens, Staten Island, and Western Brooklyn franchises were granted in 1983, and were renewed in 1998.
Cablevision Systems received cable television franchises for the Bronx and the non-Time Warner area of Brooklyn for the first time in 1983, and they were renewed in 1998.
Two delegates from the Mayor’s Office, one from the Law Department, one from the Office of Management and Budget, one from the Comptroller, and one from each of the five Borough Presidents make up the Franchise Concession and Review Committee (FCRC).
Contact:
What happened to MNN?
Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN) is a non-profit organization in Manhattan, New York City, that distributes content on five public-access television cable TV stations. MNN offers two community media centers in midtown Manhattan and East Harlem, providing instruction, equipment, facilities, and programs to community producers and organizations who desire to develop programming for one of MNN’s five channels. MNN will have over 5,000 students enrolled in its media classes in 2016, making it one of New York City’s major media education institutes.
In the 1980s, how much did cable TV cost?
Furthermore, pay television is also competing with a broader range of “basic cable networks” and regional pay sports channels, which are attracting an increasing number of viewers.
“Pay TV is flat to down,” says Tony Cox, president of Showtime, “because to the proliferation of more networks and more alternatives consumers have.” There were just four cable networks when paid television began in the mid-1970s. There are now 69.
Pay-per-view, which can transport movies into the home before they are accessible on pay TV, is also in the future.
As a result, the two major pay television networks are pursuing different tactics to slowing their expansion.
Showtime is pursuing drastic changes in pay TV pricing, while HBO is marketing itself as a “brand name,” expanding increasingly into original programming.
The current troubles of pay television may be traced back to the heady days of the 1980s, when HBO and Showtime waged “exclusivity wars” to win pay TV rights to Hollywood films. The policy, which aimed to set itself apart from the competition by ensuring that the same film did not air on both channels, did not come without a cost.
Over the next seven years, Showtime plans to spend $2.3 billion on movies. Showtime Networks Inc., which is owned by Viacom Inc. and includes Showtime and the Movie Channel, lost money between 1987 and 1989 as a result of these programming costs. It hopes to be moderately profitable this year.
“It’s not a fantastic business even in good times,” admits one senior Showtime executive.
HBO, which is owned by Time Warner Inc. and has yearly revenues of more than $1 billion, has seen its pretax profit margin fluctuate between 9% and 13% in previous years.
However, the two pay television competitors can no longer compete by slamming each other (although Viacom still has a $2.4 billion antitrust lawsuit against Time Warner and HBO ongoing).
HBO and Showtime are attempting to persuade the cable industry that paid television is still feasible in the face of increased competition from upstart cable channels.
HBO and Showtime, for example, are not concerned about their programming. They continue to receive high ratings, frequently outperforming one of the Big Three networks during prime time among pay TV households.
“Hundreds of millions of homes still don’t have HBO,” Fuchs says. ” However, I am not going to obtain that business by making another made-for-TV film. It’s only through slamming into those folks that I’m able to do so.
Showtime and HBO are now working on subscriber retention in addition to increased pounding. Each month, up to 4.5 percent of HBO’s customers unsubscribe, implying that the pay TV channel must replace almost half of its subscriber base on an annual basisratios comparable to the mature magazine industry.
Pay TV CEOs are ready to point the finger at deregulation as the root of their troubles. “The problem with our growth is entirely due to marketing and positioning.” The hike in cable rates has harmed us, according to Cox.
According to Paul Kagan Associates, the average monthly cost of basic cable increased from $8 to $16 between 1980 and 1989. Customers must “buy through the basic package” on most local cable systems before they can purchase their first pay TV channel, which normally costs an extra $10 per month.
According to HBO’s Fuchs, “basic costs have gone up considerably, and that is the primary cause for the pay TV slowdown.”
In certain regions, forcing users to acquire a package of basic channelswhich may include channels they don’t want to watchhas reached absurd levels. Cable consumers in several New York suburbs on Long Island and in Connecticut, for example, must spend $60 per month to get Showtime.
However, according to Robert Klingensmith, head of Paramount Video, the studio’s arm that sells movies to pay television, VCRs have harmed pay television as well. “Because these films are no longer first in the home with home video, customers are saying, ‘I don’t need all of these things.'”
Nonetheless, most cable executives believe that “marketplace mechanics” are impeding pay television, which is why marketing has become the new motto for pay television. In fact, the pay services are having to spend ever-increasing quantities of money just to stay afloat. Pay TV executives point out that this is similar to many mature products, which require companies to budget 15% of sales just to maintain market share.
Part of the reason why pay TV channels rely on marketing is that they have no other option.
According to analyst Gerbrandt, “one of pay TV’s biggest concerns is that the programming can’t be changed because the majority of the expense is long-term production arrangements with the studios.”
“They have no flexibility in that sense,” he argues, “therefore the only thing they can directly control is the product’s marketing.”
HBO will spend $150 million on marketing next year, primarily on advertising and promotion. One-third of money is set aside for buying broadcast network advertisement time for a “image campaign.” HBO has also grown to be one of the country’s largest direct-mail advertisers.
While HBO spends money to promote itself, Showtime is working behind the scenes to modify the way basic and pay TV channels are packaged by local cable operators. “I don’t believe any amount of advertising on behalf of our brand will be enough to solve our industry’s inherent difficulties,” Cox says.
Showtime has suggested a major overhaul of the wholesale license payments it charges local cable companies. Showtime and HBO have traditionally charged local cable systems between $4 and $5 per subscriber. At the retail level, the local system frequently more than doubles that rate.
However, a new concept floated by Showtime in recent weeks would levy a tiny cost to all basic subscribers rather than the $4 to $5 price charged solely to those who pay for the pay channel.
“The assumption is that by lowering the price, Showtime can significantly improve its penetration,” says Mark Riely, a partner at MacDonald Gripo Riely, a New York investment firm.
Most local cable operators have resisted the Showtime proposal so far because it threatens their short-term profit margins. Few local systems, many of which are highly leveraged because to recent ownership changes, can afford to make such a sacrifice in the current economic climate.
Local systems, the bulk of which are controlled by or linked with huge “multiple system operators, or MSOs,” are instead experimenting with their own methods of marketing pay television. United Artist Entertainment, a Denver-based MSO, is now selling pay channel annual subscriptions at certain of its local systems across the country. Customers will receive a discount if they purchase a year’s worth of pay channel service in advance, similar to how periodicals have done for years.
Jerry Maglio, senior vice president of marketing at United Artist Entertainment, says, “When a category matures, it is imperative to come up with marketing innovations.”
HBO and Showtime’s fate is largely in the hands of MSOs and local cable companies, over which they have no control. “The issue is that the pay networks have to promote around the operators, and the operators have never been very effective marketers,” says one studio executive with experience in the pay TV industry.
Pay TV executives also believe that MSOs and local cable systems prefer basic channels to pay channels because MSOs often hold one or more of the basic channels.
Local cable systems really generate more money through basic than they do from pay because basic has considerably greater margins. Basic revenue accounts for roughly 70% of a local system’s revenue, while pay accounts for 30%. In addition, half of off-air pay TV income go to the network, compared to 20% to 25% for basic channels.
HBO and Showtime were commonly used as an incentive to get cable TV in the early to mid-1980s, along with greater reception. CNN, ESPN, USA Network, Discovery Channel, and TNT were either not yet started or couldn’t afford the type of programming that would draw people.
According to Marc Nathanson, president of Los Angeles-based Falcon Cable TV, “when basic channels become more successful and offer better programming, it takes viewers away from both broadcast networks and pay channels.”
HBO and Showtime did not face as much competition from cable five years ago.
Pay-per-view television may be more problematic. For $3 to $5 per viewing, PPV, which is now accessible in 27% of cable TV homes, allows viewers access to blockbuster films several months before they air on pay TV.
According to Riely, “PPV will take over the function that pay TV began with in the 1970s and 1980s: premium exposure of unedited films on television.” Pay TV, he believes, will become more like basic networks in the future, with a greater selection of shows than movies and probably some type of advertising.
HBO has already taken the first steps in this manner. Despite the fact that large Hollywood movies will continue to be the channel’s backbone, Fuchs is pushing the channel towards original programming, high-profile specials, and sports. These shows, particularly comedy specials and boxing fights, are then promoted as “events” and used to entice viewers to subscribe.
“We have to offer more daring programming now,” Fuchs says, referring to adult sitcom “Dream On” and documentary series like “Real Sex.” One lasting benefit of paid television is that it may air programs with violence or nudity that networks and basic cable channels would not touch.
However, few experts believe that sex, violence, and sports will be enough to propel pay television to the same levels of popularity as it was in the 1980s. Furthermore, HBO and Showtime have long-term contracts to purchase Hollywood films, leaving little money for alternative programming.
Analyst Gerbrandt observes, “Nobody put a gun to their heads.”
They each held a gun to the other’s head.
What did the first cable businesses look like?
Subscribers can communicate with programming facilities or information centers within the system using a two-way channel. Home viewers can use their cable connection to participate in public opinion surveys or access a variety of written and graphic resources (e.g., citations from reference books, concert schedules, and recipes). The latter feature is provided by systems referred as as
When did cable Internet become popular?
The world’s most inventive technological platform is being built by cable ISPs. Cable companies have been investing in American infrastructure since 1948, and our fiber-rich networks have made household high-speed internet access a reality throughout the country. From super-fast gigabit speeds to $9.95 per month rates for low-income homes, the cable business has a broadband service to satisfy every demand.
Before Comcast, what was the cable company’s name?
Comcast, or Comcast Corporation, is a prominent American provider of cable television, entertainment, and communications products and services. It was formerly known as American Cable Systems (196369). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is where the company’s headquarters are located. Ralph J. Comcast created Comcast in 1963.
What was the purpose of the Cable Act of 1992?
The 1992 act signaled a return to regulation in the areas of cable pricing, services, and programmer access, as well as the expansion of obscenity restrictions to cover cable and public access channels.
The 1984 cable act deregulated most of cable transmission, and subsequent court judgments lowered rules even more.
