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4 The Rise of Satellite Cable,1975–1980
- University of Texas Press
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CHAPTER FOUR ■ 94 The Rise of Satellite Cable, 1975–1980 The 1975 satellite debut of Home Box Office might be described as a revolution in cable programming since this was the first instance of a non-broadcast-based cable network becoming available to audiences nationwide. Indeed, this pioneering use of satellite technology for a paycable network—an event that marked the beginning of modern cable television—was a breakthrough in cable communications. The cable industry’s goal of offering packages of programming to supplement retransmitted broadcast channels, a goal firmly established in the early 1970s, was aided tremendously by the advent of an efficient means of widespread distribution. In effect, satellites created an entirely new market for cable service among television viewers already well served by broadcast stations—a market that would grow exponentially as more satellite networks launched and more cable operators gave their subscribers access to this programming. However, to describe the introduction of satellite technology as a programming revolution is to neglect both the evolution in cable that preceded it, as detailed in Chapters 2 and 3, and the legacy of that evolution in modern cable programming. In fact, by the mid-1970s a programming infrastructure already was in place that would be expanded tremendously, though not fundamentally altered, by the introduction of satellites. Satellite cable’s first half decade was by no means a period of programming innovation for the medium. Approximately half the satellite networks launched before 1980 can be described as “narrowcast,” in that they targeted subsections of the larger television audience or specialized in particular topics. Yet nearly all of them offered program genres— often actual programming—already proven successful either on broadcast television or elsewhere. They relied heavily on sports, movies (firstrun as well as syndicated), and broadcast reruns. In some cases, as de04 -T2408 1/29/03 11:43 AM Page 94 The Rise of Satellite Cable ■ 95 tailed later in this chapter, early satellite networks were nothing more than independent broadcast stations whose signals had been uplinked to satellite. However, even the more specialized networks tended to resemble broadcast television. The Christian Broadcasting Network’s cable network, for example, filled much of its schedule with broadcast reruns. And the Spanish-language network Galavision drew heavily from programming originally produced for Latin American broadcast television. Cable’s brief but conflicted regulatory history has a great deal to do with this reliance on broadcast-type programming, since it had cultivated an environment in which the cable industry had little incentive to use its resources for developing new types of programming. No sooner had CATV become a viable industry in the 1950s and early 1960s than it was forced by government regulators to limit its expansion into new areas of service—notably the development of new programming categories. CATV already was heavily dependent on broadcast television , and the FCC regulations of the mid-1960s only cemented this relationship. A shift in the official position on cable’s development during the late 1960s and early 1970s did not alter this trajectory nearly as much as expected . While Blue Sky optimism was the discursive climate in which many enduring cable policies were formulated, those policies ultimately did not encourage nearly the degree of innovation that had been anticipated . In efforts to foster both localism and diversity in cable programming , the FCC mandated several different types of locally originated programming. In the 1969 Report and Order, regulators set goals for the development of original programming, yet offered very little guidance for implementing those goals. They essentially were requiring the cable industry to build its own programming infrastructure—a huge demand, especially given that up to that point cable operators had been discouraged from exploring most types of original programming. The followup to this was the 1972 Report and Order, which extended local programming goals through its access provisions, but offered even stronger incentives for operators to increase the amount of broadcast programming they used. As the present chapter discusses, provisions mandating original and local cable programming were eroded over the course of the 1970s until, by 1980, virtually none were left. Furthermore, the federal government—particularly the White House’s Office of Telecommunications Policy (OTP)—had been eager 04-T2408 1/29/03 11:43 AM Page 95 [44.192.38.143] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 11:35 GMT) to see the domestic communications satellite industry develop in the fastest way possible. Virtually ignoring plans laid out by the Ford...