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CHAPTER SEVEN ■ 185 Cable Television’s Past, Present, and Future Cable Programming’s Historical Imperative In spite of its many promotion and scheduling innovations, U.S. cable programming sometimes has been perceived as a failure or, perhaps, a series of compromises. In large part, this is due to the tremendous optimism and idealism generated during the late 1960s and early 1970s, the period in cable history known as “Blue Sky.” At that time, cable began to be understood as more than a simple retransmission medium, and many proposals envisioned ways in which it might expand, or even reinvent, television programming. The following statement, which appears near the beginning of the well-known 1971 Sloan Commission report , On the Cable: The Television of Abundance, is representative of the mind-set that guided those proposals: Cable television today is at a stage where the general exercise of choice is still possible. If for no better reason than that there is a history of government regulation in the field of television, it remains possible by government action to prohibit it, to permit it, or to promote it almost by fiat. Citizens may still take a hand in shaping cable television’s growth and institutions in a fashion that will bend it to society’s will and society’s best intentions. It is not as yet encumbered by massive vested interests, although that day may be no longer remote. It is not as yet so fixed a part of the national scene, as for example conventional television is, that it appears almost quixotic to attempt to redirect its energies. There is, in short, still time. (3) The Sloan Commission, as well as many other individuals and groups researching and writing about cable television during the Blue Sky years, expressed optimism that policy might be instituted to guide cable away from its strong dependence on broadcast television. Like other Blue Sky studies, the Sloan Commission report included detailed recommenda07 -T2408 1/29/03 11:43 AM Page 185 tions for policymakers. Also like other Blue Sky studies, it warned that the time for altering cable’s trajectory was rapidly running out. The scenarios about which the Blue Sky visionaries cautioned policymakers and the general public did come to pass. By the mid-1970s cable programming was controlled almost entirely by big business. And since that time its content has not diverged significantly from that of broadcast television. In fact, cable has maintained such close ties to broadcasting that some of its most popular program services have been actual broadcast stations—in the form of retransmitted signals from nearby stations, as well as in the form of cable “superstations.” This ongoing relationship should not be surprising to anyone familiar with cable’s history . Throughout that history the television audience habitually has supportedthesortsofmass -appealprogrammingthatcharacterizebroadcast network television. And policymakers have repeatedly supported a cable environment in which these sorts of programs can flourish. An enduring precedent for cable’s reliance on broadcast programming was set at the time of its “invention” in the late 1940s: as community antenna television (CATV), cable was to be a retransmission medium for broadcast television signals. Even after microwave relays had been enlisted to enhance, and sometimes substitute for, the capabilities of community antennas, the medium still was known almost exclusively for its ability to provide broadcast programming. The attempts of a few isolated CATV operators to introduce locally originated programming to their subscribers hardly constituted a standard practice for their industry during the 1950s. And while the concurrently developing pay-TV industry was exploring several nonbroadcast sources of television programming , at that point pay-TV was mired in regulatory controversy and its associations with cable remained extremely tenuous. Throughout the 1960s, the CATV/cable industry demonstrated both more willingness and more ability to develop non-broadcast-derived programming than it had in the previous decade—including possible joint ventures with pay-TV companies. However, during the 1960s restrictive federal guidelines were instituted for cable, and these slowed the medium’s growth considerably. Though the restrictions eventually would be lifted, for several years cable was virtually banned from entering communities served by broadcast television. Pay-television also remained in regulatory limbo during the 1960s. Some pay-TV operations had been waiting more than a decade for permission to move beyond limited trials. Regulators’ stated purpose both in instituting strict cable regulations and in delaying the licensing of pay-TV was to protect broad186 ■ The Rise of Cable Programming in the United States...

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