Cable TV - from a cable to the screen

Cable TV was actually pioneered way back in 1948 in the Pennsylvania Mountains. Back then, it was actually called CATV which stood for Community Area TV.

Mr. John Watson

The name of the Cable TV pioneer is Mr. John Watson. It was Mr. Watson who first came across in 1948 when local residents of Mahanoy City were experiencing problems in receiving any of the areas 3 local TV channels due to the physical presence of the mountains themselves.

So he set up a special receiving antenna on a high pole and initially beamed the 3 local channels down to the TVs in his store. Once the locals saw that it was possible to receive all 3 channels, a demand arose, and Mr. Watson arranged some special cabling and booster boxes to actually cable the signals right into those neighbor's homes. The first true cable TV network.

This is actually a true story and Mr. Watson has been celebrated both by Congress and the National Cable TV Association as the true founding father of the industry.

Mr. Watson has continued to show his flair and entrepreneurship by being the first to use microwave technology to import distant channels, the first to use what became an industry standard, coaxial cable, and the first to broadcast pay television programming.

Time marches on

Well, they say time waits for nobody, and so it is that Cable TV literally exploded right across the face of America and the rest of the world. You get the programming delivered right to your set, right inside your house via a series of discrete cables. The latest phenomenon is the introduction of fiber optic cable which will deliver faster bigger signals to your TV. It just keeps on getting better and better.

Mel C writes about all form of entertainment including cable tv, Satellite TV and pay TV in Australia