1. Chapter 2
History of Cable, Home Video and the Internet

2. Cable TV
• 1949: Engineer Ed Parsons buys a TV set
for his wife Grace. They lived in Astoria,
Oregon -- where they were too far away
from any TV stations to get a signal
• KRSC signs on in Seattle, Parsons flies
around to try and pick up a signal
• He finds KRSC’s signal coming off a tower
on top of the Astoria Hotel -- across the
street from their apartment
• He runs a cable from that tower -- and
they now can get the signal
• Soon he was stringing wire all over town
for $125 a household

3. Cable TV
• Others began doing the same thing; CATV was born
• CATV: more commonly known as Cable TV, community antennae
television
• FCC was reluctant to get involved -- in 1958, they decided they did
not have the authority to regulate cable since it did not use
broadcast spectrum space
• UHF stations feared they would not be profitable, and asked the
FCC for some protection
• 1965-1966: FCC claimed jurisdiction over cable, and issued
restrictive rules to protect over-the-air broadcasting

4. Cable TV
• 1968: FCC rules that CATV systems
in the top 100 markets had to get
specific approval before they could
import the signals of distant stations
• These rules inhibited the growth of
CATV and made sure growth would
be limited to smaller, rural
communities
• CATV was still improving their
technology during this time

5. Cable TV
1972: FCC issued another set of rules:
1. local communities, states and the FCC would regulate cable
2. 20-channel minimums for new systems
3. all local stations had to be carried
4. more regulations on the carrying of distant signals, including the
nonduplication provision (cable companies could not carry shows
from distant providers if those shows were available from the local
market)
5. pay cable services would be approved

6. Pay TV
• 1959: Paramount pictures effectively creates
the first movie premium cable channel in
Palm Springs California; for a fee users
could see movies. They also offered college
football games.
• Early on, this idea didn’t catch on, it would
be more than 20 years before Pay TV was
marketable.

7. Cable Growth
•
1975: HBO begins. They offered wider coverage at a lower
cost for first-run movies
•
HBO rented a transponder on the satellite Satcom I and
created the first satellite interconnected cable
programming network; allowed for greater coverage of
cable systems at a lower cost
•
The big attraction to cable now, was receiving channels
that otherwise could not be received, like HBO
•
Other cable-only channels came about: Showtime, The
Movie Channel, Christian Broadcasting Network -- and
other regional “superstations” like WTBS in Atlanta and
WGN in Chicago
•
•
Other specialized networks followed: ESPN, MTV, CNN
more features to attract customers

8. Cable Growth
• FCC’s 1972 rules were stifling cable growth
• 1980s: Reagan administration advanced
deregulation policies; FCC would encourage
competition between cable and traditional TV
• Cable Communications Policy Act (1984):
endorsed localism, set up a system of community
regulation tempered by federal oversight. FCC
was given definite but limited authority over cable
-- making the local communities the major force
in cable regulation. Cable companies were given
freedoms in setting rates and program services
• Big media companies invested in cable; by 1988
the industry was dominated by large multiplesystem operators (MSOs)

9. Alternatives to Cable
• Satellites began usage for
broadcast in 1962
• 1976: HBO broadcast the
"Thrilla in Manila" fight; Ted
Turner put WTBS on
satellite
• Cable Communications
Policy Act legalized the
private reception of satellite
TV programming

10. Alternatives to Cable
• DBS companies like DirecTV and
Dish Network offered
competition
• Multichannel, multipoint
distribution services (wireless
cable -- using a downconverter
to receive cable signals -- not
very popular) and VCRs, DVDs
and DVRs offered competition as
well

11. Home Video
• Videotape recorder (VTR): invention that
made home video possible
• Kinescope recorder -- film recorder that
recorded off of a TV screen. Poor quality -which is why there are few tapes of early TV
programs
• VCR: began with the Sony Betamax VCR in
1975
• Betamax could record up to one hour of
video (wow!)
• Betamax case:
First issues with piracy; 1984
Supreme Court ruled that home taping
didn’t violate copyright law

12. Home Video
• A Japanese firm, Matsushita,
developed a competing format
called VHS (video home system)
• VHS had a longer recording
capability, though quality was
inferior to Betamax
• Time-shifting

13. DVDs and DVRs
• Digital video disc, or digital versatile disc
• Advantages over tape: more content, better picture
and audio quality, doesn't wear out like tape
• New revenue stream emerged with the advent of
DVD: boxed sets of TV programs; the first two
seasons of Seinfeld generated more than $95M in
revenue
• DVR: digital video recorder; records live TV to a
hard disk
• The video store: 25,000 in 2004; future is bleak as
consumers turn toward services like Netflix and
digital distribution, On-demand programming,
Internet

14. The Internet
• Internet: the global interconnection of computer networks made
possible by using common communication protocols; the World
Wide Web is just one service available on the network
• Other Internet services: Gopher, FTP, email

15. The Internet
•
Developed out of concern for military
preparedness
•
Cold War struggle (1945-1989) US military had a
need for decentralized communication -communication needed to remain intact and
uninterrupted in the case of a missile or nuclear
attack
•
packet-switching model: data packets were small,
and if lost could be resent over networks easily
•
With many interconnected paths on which packets
traveled, if one path were lost, packets had several
paths to travel on
•
DARPA (1958): Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency

16. The Internet
• ARPANET - born in 1968, the network
that could survive nuclear war
• Academics became involved in testing
ARPANET
• 1969: 4 major nodes hooked up to the
network: UCLA, UC Santa Barbara,
Stanford & University of Utah
• 1st computer-to-computer networks,
used for academic research and further
development of ARPANET’s capabilities

17. Timeline of the Internet
• 1972: Ray Tomlinson invents email
• 1976: Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn
develop TCP/IP - the new protocol made it
easier to send information over the
network
• 1979: USENET: a system that enabled
groups of computers to share messages
• Personal computing takes off in the 1980s
• Apple Macintosh debuts in 1984

18. Timeline of the Internet
• 1986: the Internet is officially born; NSFNET
(the new higher speed network that replaced
ARPANET) used TCP/IP to connect universities
• 1987: domain names are being assigned
• 1989: Tim Berners-Lee coins the phrase:
World Wide Web
• 1990s: ISPs start service
• 1993: GUI Interface developed, called Mosiac
(Graphical User Interface)

19. The World Wide Web
• Tim Berners-Lee wrote a program that
used a GUI for requesting information
available on networked databases
• Then, the vast majority of information
available on the Internet consisted of
text; they were connected via
hyperlinks
• Hyperlinks request URLs to display
• By 1994 the WWW was seeing its first
commercial applications

20. Cable, satellites, home video and the
Internet in the 21st century
• Cable TV continues to consolidate: Comcast acquires AT&T broadband,
Comcast and Time Warner acquire Adelphia
• Cable continues to draw audiences away from traditional TV
• Cable provides more than TV; companies offer phone and Internet as
well
• VoIP: voice over Internet protocol
• High speed broadband service
• Web 2.0: blogs, social networking, podcasting, video sharing, usergenerated content