A Brief History of Cable Television in the United States


Cable packages

Many historians agree that television changed the world of communications after it was invented in the late 1930s. Before television, people could only communicate to large crowds of people through the radio, which transmitted their voices but not their images; this proved problematic for many communicators and entertainers who quickly recognized that 90 percent of communication was nonverbal.

Television, however, allowed these communicators to use their bodies and faces to augment (or even contradict) their spoken messages. American families quickly learned to prefer television to radio for precisely that reason: they enjoyed watching their favorite performers contort their bodies and faces into odd shapes and patterns; it was a lot more fun than listening to those same performers on the radio.

These observations seem to suggest that television was an overnight hit. However, most historians agree that television only really took off after World War II ended. During the postwar period, many American families started to move away from the cities into the suburbs. As they started to purchase large luxury homes and large luxury cars, and as they started to have more children, these families started to purchase inexpensive television sets which would complement their new prosperous lifestyles; many families viewed the television as a status symbol: the family which owned the largest television or subscribed to the most channels often believed that it was the best family on the block.

To help American families climb the social ladder, cable providers in my area introduced cable packages, cable deals, and cable bundles in 1948. These cable packages replaced traditional television antenna with cables; the cables could carry dozens more channels than the airwaves.

In the later 20th century, cable companies started to offer other services such as FM radio programming, high speed Internet, telephone service, and similar non television services. None of these services proved to more popular than the internet, which many American families regard as absolutely vital to their well being.

Because internet access is available in a variety of forms, speeds, and prices, many families have a hard time finding cable internet deals. The best cable internet deals offer high speed internet and cable access for one low price. However, very few cable internet deals match this description. Instead, the vast majority of cable internet deals bundle mediocre internet service with a handful of unpopular cable channels. In these instances, the family spends far too much money for cable internet deals that they almost never use.

To avoid purchasing these bad cable internet deals, many families have turned away from cable companies altogether. Instead, they bypass purchasing cable internet deals by purchasing internet access from internet companies. Continue reading here: www.offerssearch.com