I never knew cAble tv was around in 1973. In the episode-Lamont gone African, Fred askes Lamont to get him cable tv. I thought cable did not come out until the late 1970's. How many cable channels could there have been in 1973?-LOL

Originally posted by Sitcom Analyzer
I never knew cAble tv was around in 1973. In the episode-Lamont gone African, Fred askes Lamont to get him cable tv. I thought cable did not come out until the late 1970's. How many cable channels could there have been in 1973?-LOL
We had cable tv in the mid 1970's but it was mostly the local channels. They came in clearer with cable than the antennas. I think the first national cable network we got was WTBS but it wasn't called that then.

Originally posted by mr roper

We had cable tv in the mid 1970's but it was mostly the local channels. They came in clearer with cable than the antennas. I think the first national cable network we got was WTBS but it wasn't called that then.


TBS wasn't around until the 80's

Cable wasn't much in my area. It was a movie channel with some special features. At late nite they used to show porn but it was scrambled with no sound BUT who cared!!!!:lol:

Originally posted by marvin g
Cable wasn't much in my area. It was a movie channel with some special features. At late nite they used to show porn but it was scrambled with no sound BUT who cared!!!!:lol:

As a fellow Chicagoan, I know exactly what you're talking about.
It was called "ONTV" - which took over Channel 44 late at night in the late 70s & early 80s.

No one I knew actually "subscribed" to it per se, but a lot of our parents had pirate decoder boxes that worked quite well! :)

Originally posted by Sitcom Analyzer
TBS wasn't around until the 80's
TBS went national in 1976 and in NC we had TBS and HBO by 1978. We still only had about 12 channels. The majority of the rest of the cable channels we got came in the early 80's.

Originally posted by mr roper

TBS went national in 1976 and in NC we had TBS and HBO by 1978. We still only had about 12 channels. The majority of the rest of the cable channels we got came in the early 80's.


But Fred was saying he wanted cable like he had the selection of cable channels we have now-LOL It couldn;t have been that many cable channels in 1973

Originally posted by Sitcom Analyzer
But Fred was saying he wanted cable like he had the selection of cable channels we have now-LOL It couldn;t have been that many cable channels in 1973
More than likely he would have gotten clearer local channels. A lot of the channels with antennas were snowy.

Cable TV has evolved a long way since it was first introduced in the early 70's.. We lived in a mountainous area that could not get any reception from conventional antennas because of the geographical interfernce. "Cable" was received through crude transmittors, or relays, through satellites and was limited to local stations that had a strong reception otherwise. We had the local channels like WCBS, WABC, and HBO (back then it played the same two movies, one after another, in one week intervals), along with PRISM (sports), Pinwheel (eventually Nickelodeon), Playboy, and some Spanish stations that were notorious for playing roller derby games most of the time! So, yes, Fred could conceivably have cable, but remember it was very crude back then (a rainstorm could disrupt power for days on end).

Originally posted by Tyler77
Cable TV has evolved a long way since it was first introduced in the early 70's.. We lived in a mountainous area that could not get any reception from conventional antennas because of the geographical interfernce. "Cable" was received through crude transmittors, or relays, through satellites and was limited to local stations that had a strong reception otherwise. We had the local channels like WCBS, WABC, and HBO (back then it played the same two movies, one after another, in one week intervals), along with PRISM (sports), Pinwheel (eventually Nickelodeon), Playboy, and some Spanish stations that were notorious for playing roller derby games most of the time! So, yes, Fred could conceivably have cable, but remember it was very crude back then (a rainstorm could disrupt power for days on end).



Prism was really around in the early 70"s????

Originally posted by mr roper

More than likely he would have gotten clearer local channels. A lot of the channels with antennas were snowy.
We also got local channels that were further away like in Raleigh and Durham that we couldn't have got without cable.

mooseface: Do you remember the other cable station Spectrum? It was similiar to OnTV.

I can remember getting 2-13 on cable around 1976 or so; the two channels I recall watching most were TBS and WGN. TBS sticks out the most, watching such shows as "I Love Lucy," "Perry Mason," "Space Giants," and the "Flintstones."

Originally posted by Flash72
I can remember getting 2-13 on cable around 1976 or so; the two channels I recall watching most were TBS and WGN. TBS sticks out the most, watching such shows as "I Love Lucy," "Perry Mason," "Space Giants," and the "Flintstones."


Had no idea TBS was around over 27 years.

Fred also wanted cable tv in the episode "The TV Addict." He asked Lamont to get cable so he could watch the roller derby "on that spanish station." Fred msut have wanted it to get better reception.

Here's something you may be amazed at, as I am when I think about it. My dad said that when he was a kid - and this was in the 50's - there was a service where they paid $2 a month to get the signal from some huge antenna somewhere. I did read encyclopedia articles about cable TV, and they said the history of it goes back to the 50's, and it was originally called CATV - Community Antenna Television.

I lived in Missoula, Montana in 1979 and we had TBS and ESPN on cable. If we were getting it in Montana, then I am sure cable was prominent throughout the USA by then.

Originally posted by mlow35
I lived in Missoula, Montana in 1979 and we had TBS and ESPN on cable. If we were getting it in Montana, then I am sure cable was prominent throughout the USA by then.


Cable in 1979 is like High Defintion TV in 2004, it wasn't in a lot of households in the late 70's.

Apparently cable has been around in some form since the beginning of television.

I checked out a few web sites about the history of cable TV. This excerpt from the following link is interesting.

Cable Develops
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With the help of Milton Shapp's innovation, cable television spread quickly throughout the country to remote and rural areas far from broadcast origination in cities. For many years, cable was simply a way to improve reception so people could see network broadcasts. It served as a community's antenna. It didn't stay that way for long. Mr. Walson in the early 1950's and later other system owners soon began to experiment with microwave to bring the signals from distant cities. Pennsylvania systems that only had three channels-one for each network-soon had six, seven or more channels as operators imported programs from independent stations from New York and Philadelphia. Because of the variety it offered toviewers, cable became more and more attractive and eventually moved into cities as people wanted more viewing choice. Perhaps the biggest event since cable began, and what many say is responsible for the rapid growth in the cable industry during the last decade, was the development of Pay TV.
http://www.telecom.ksu.edu/cable/history.html

We got cable tv in the fall of 1977 where I lived, which was a rather small town actually, but was near Louisville, KY so maybe that had something to do with it. I was only 6 years old, but can remember that ugly tan colored cable box that you had to get up and change the channels by moving the selector bar across the front of it. It also had a knob for fine tuning. There weren't alot of channels then, but I remember watching Channel 9 from Chicago (WGN) and WTBS from Atlanta mostly. The first movie I watched on cable was "The Muppet Movie" which back then was the only way to see things since home video virtually didn't exist.


Chad