Cable
TV is one of those things that was invented by a lot of different
people, working separately but far apart.
If
you Google “Who invented cable TV?” you will get several
different answers. No matter who is claimed as the inventor, though,
the timing is roughly the same: cable TV became a thing in 1948.
Now,
why would anyone pay for cable TV when they could just “pluck”
broadcasts out of the air for free? The answer is that many people
couldn't get broadcast TV because they lived in a remote area
or a valley—places where the television signals weren't floating
around, accessible to the ordinary antenna on a TV set. So bright
people here and there erected large antennas on a hilltop or tall
building and then ran a cable from that antenna to the televisions.
One
of the guys who did this was Ed Parsons from Astoria, Oregon.
Parsons
owned a radio station, and so he was in the “broadcast business.”
His wife had seen a TV at a broadcasters' convention, and she wanted
one. Parsons heard that a radio station in Seattle was going to begin
to broadcast TV signals, so he put a large antenna on the roof of the
Astoria Hotel. He then ran a coaxial cable from the antenna, across
the street to his apartment, to a television set that he bought.
And
on this date in 1948, Ed Parsons and his wife became the only people
in Astoria that could watch television in their home!
Of
course, other people heard about it and wanted to be able to watch
TV, too, so soon Parsons was installing cable TV in other peoples'
homes, as well. (He didn't charge a monthly cable TV charge, but he
did of course have people pay for the materials and his work in
running cable from his antenna to their brand-new television sets.)
By
the way, one of the other names for early cable TV was CATV, or
Community Antenna Television.
Also on this date:
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