I read in the 1981 TV Guide that these were the only cable channels being offered in 1981

HBO
ESPN
USA
Showtime


My Family didn't get cable until the summer of 1988

There was also WHT which was before HBO.

I also didn't get cable until 1984.

No.. we got cable in 1997. lol

We got cable in either 1985 or 1986.

We had cable then. WTBS was offered where I lived in the late 1970's. I think it was 1978.

We got cable in early 1985. It only cost $8.00 back then! Now it's $40 or $45 for basic cable.

My family wasn't a family in 1981 I don't think. lol come to think of it we're not a family now either. Question unanswered. :wave:

We got cable in 2000... or 2001, I think.

We've had cable since 1977! :) :D

Yep. There were not many channels in comparison to today, but we had it. I remember having cable back when the one and only movie channel was called "The Z Channel."

We got cable in 1980.

I got my cable either 2001 or 2002.

I have no idea, but we had it when we got the VCR in 87.

Yes we had it in 81, then my mom got rid of it in 84 or 85 because the price kept going up. I didn't have cable again till I moved out on my own.

I read in the 1981 TV Guide that these were the only cable channels being offered in 1981

HBO
ESPN
USA
Showtime


My Family didn't get cable until the summer of 1988

I don't think thats exactly true, CNN launched in 1980 and Nickelodeon launched in '79 I believe, so I'm sure there were more channels than that. MTV was also launched in August of '81. Anyhow we didnt get cable until 1982, but I remember my mom was all excited to get her MTV! Now adays MTV is garbage!

I remember we had only 2 cable channels when we first got cable which must have been 1980 or 1981. We had something called ON TV which was a movie channel like HBO and we had SportsVision in Chicago which had a lot of different local sports. I remember ON TV would show Star Wars like every day. I must have watched it about 50 times. This was before we had VCRs. I didn't get a VCR until probably 1985.

Way before cable boxes even. There was a dial that you set the channel on.

We probably didn't get more than 2 channels until about 1983.

We got cable for the first time when we moved to the Detroit Area, MI in Summer 1981.

I just asked my mom, and we got cable in '86

We got cable Christmas '89 and our first VCR in 88.
We have satillite (Direct TV ) now and I like it much much better!

We had cable in 79.

I don't think thats exactly true, CNN launched in 1980 and Nickelodeon launched in '79 I believe, so I'm sure there were more channels than that. MTV was also launched in August of '81. Anyhow we didnt get cable until 1982, but I remember my mom was all excited to get her MTV! Now adays MTV is garbage!


Nickelodeon started in 85. I'm surprised you didn;t know that especially with all the 20th anniversary talk.

Nickelodeon started in 85. I'm surprised you didn;t know that especially with all the 20th anniversary talk.

I think Nick at Nite started in 85 but Nickelodeon was airing kids shows during the day several years before that. I remember watching "Belle and Sebastian" and "You Can't Do That On television" in 1981/82.

Nickelodeon started in 85. I'm surprised you didn;t know that especially with all the 20th anniversary talk.

No, N@N started in 85, Nickelodeon had been around for a few years before that.


Anyways, we didn't get cable until 1996, about a week before Christmas. I still remember to this day coming home from school and the first thing I saw on cable in my house was The Muppets singing "Kokomo" on a Nickelodeon music video. I remember for a while we weren't allowed to watch MTV, but that wore off soon, especially with older brothers. Other than that, everything was free game, but we stuck mostly to Nick and TVLand.

I remember for a while we weren't allowed to watch MTV, but that wore off soon, especially with older brothers.

I got cable in 1991, and practically all I watched was MTV. I was glued to that channel. Back then, it wasn't nearly as bad as it's gotten since.

I got cable in 1991, and practically all I watched was MTV. I was glued to that channel. Back then, it wasn't nearly as bad as it's gotten since.

MTV, VH1 and Comedy Central are about the only things I watch on TV anymore. If I want to watch a sitcom I'll put in a DVD.

No I don't think we got cable till the mid 80's sometime ;)

Whenever cable came out is when my family got it.

Eh I don't know about 1981, but since I was born in 1985, we've always had it.

1981 was the year I was born, and my parents were on welfare that year. They had enough trouble getting us food each month, so cable tv was the furthest thing from their minds in those days. The first time we got cable was in the late 80's. 1987, or 88 I believe.

Though in our family we did not receive cable til the early 1980s, I do remember watching HBO as far back as the late 1970s...(I BELIEVE HBO has been around since 1975?)

Though in our family we did not receive cable til the early 1980s, I do remember watching HBO as far back as the late 1970s...(I BELIEVE HBO has been around since 1975?)



Yeah HBO was one of the first cable channels in my neighborhood. You knew if someone had HBO because they had that HUGE Antenna on the Roof

No, we didn't. :lol:

Its funny seeing hotels or motels with old signs that say "HBO in COLOR"

Just the cable from the TV antenna Tower ;)

Nickelodeon started in 85. I'm surprised you didn;t know that especially with all the 20th anniversary talk.

The world's first cable channel devoted to programming for children and youth, Nickelodeon debuted in 1979 as Pinwheel (renamed to "Nickelodeon" in 1981). It was originally owned by Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment, a joint venture of American Express and the cable division of Warner Bros.; it is now part of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom.

was'nt born until '85

WTCG Atlanta went national via satellite on December 17 1976. It was renamed WTBS in 1979,
and eventually the national version just went by TBS.

I remember a time when we only had 4 channels. We didn't get cable until the early 1990's.

The world's first cable channel devoted to programming for children and youth, Nickelodeon debuted in 1979 as Pinwheel (renamed to "Nickelodeon" in 1981). It was originally owned by Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment, a joint venture of American Express and the cable division of Warner Bros.; it is now part of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom.



Well Nickelodoen wasn't available to viewers in the New York area in 1981

I believe we got cable in 1985.

We got cable in the summer of 1989. All I watched was Cartoon Express on USA and whatever was on TBS. We didn't get HBO and Showtime until '91, even though we already got The Movie Channel as part of the regular channel lineup.

WTCG Atlanta went national via satellite on December 17 1976. It was renamed WTBS in 1979,
and eventually the national version just went by TBS.
We had that channel before it became WTBS. We didn't have a box yet. It fact we only had 13 channels in the 70's but that was on channel 10 and HBO was on channel 4. They were our first cable channels from out of state. We did have cable before then but they were all local channels from the state. If we didn't have cable we wouldn't have been able to get WRAL in Raleigh and we had that channel in 1974.

what is up w/ these "1981" questions?

My family didn't get cable until about 1989. It was like pure entertainment with sooooo many channels!!! :eek:

what is up w/ these "1981" questions?



I received a 1981 TV Guide in the mail and read the advertisements and saw the Beta Vcr

Yeah HBO was one of the first cable channels in my neighborhood. You knew if someone had HBO because they had that HUGE Antenna on the Roof

Plus they were considered REALLY cool! :cool:

Plus they were considered REALLY cool! :cool:
I was in 6th grade when we first got HBO. They give us the first few weeks free and I remember all the kids were talking about it. I think it was because they had all those R rated movies coming into their homes. :lol:

No cable until 1986

My mom told me it came available into our neighborhood in 1982. My mom actually didn't want to get it and my dad broke her down and then they got it in 1983. (I was born in '83- my brother was 2 or 3). Hard to believe since my mom is such a tv/cable addict now! Then when we moved in 1987 my parents decided to drop cable and then in 1992 we got it again. Have had it since 1992 now.

We've been having cable for as far as I can remember.

In L.A. you NEED cable because it's practically impossible to receive over the air signals. The only channels that work with a regular antenna are KABC and KTTV (Fox.)

I remember we had only 2 cable channels when we first got cable which must have been 1980 or 1981. We had something called ON TV which was a movie channel like HBO and we had SportsVision in Chicago which had a lot of different local sports. I remember ON TV would show Star Wars like every day. I must have watched it about 50 times. This was before we had VCRs. I didn't get a VCR until probably 1985.

Way before cable boxes even. There was a dial that you set the channel on.

We probably didn't get more than 2 channels until about 1983.


ON-TV was an over-the-air subscription television service that transmits a signal from a local television station. It was the precurser to cable today. In the Los Angeles area, ON-TV would broadcast on independent television station KBSC-TV channel 52 (now KVEA-TV). ON would air movies, sports and specials nightly, would later expand its schedule to weekends and later to 24 hours in October 1982. If you weren't a subscriber, you'd get a scrambled signal. ON-TV in Los Angeles began on April 1, 1977 and would last until around October 1985 when channel 52 was sold to Estrella Communications, Inc. and is now a Telemundo affiliate today. ON-TV did have a high of 300,000 subscribers at one time and bill itself as "The largest subscription television company in the world."

Another over-the-air subscription television service that competed against ON-TV was SelecTV and would begin broadcasting on July 23, 1978 when Los Angeles radio personalities Al Lohman and Roger Barkley did a special to promote the new service. SelecTV would air primarily movies, specials and occasionally a sporting event here and there. SelecTV would broadcast over KWHY-TV channel 22 in Los Angeles. A business/financial and foreign language television station. The station scrapped evening commercial programming for SelecTV each night.

Prior to 1972, UHF stations in Los Angeles broacast power from 200,000 watts to 1 million watts and none was over 2 million watts until Huntington Beach, California's KOCE-TV channel 50 (PBS) signed on that year. SelecTV suspended operations for a few nights until their new transmitter for channel 22 signed on with a more powerful signal of more than 2.5 million watts.

SelecTV was rather unique in terms of services offered to its subscribers. Its decoder terminal was unique since it had four categories for subscribers if they're interested in a particular movie or special associated with that category.

The four categories of programming would be divided this way:

A - G-Rated movies, family programming
B - PG-PG-13 movies
C - R-Rated movies
S - Specials (concerts, sports, etc)

Its decoder terminals had a green button on the front called the "accept button" if you choose to continue watching the program or to unscramble the signal. They would offer you the first 10 minutes of every program shown to subscribers at no charge. If you decide to watch the program in full, press the accept button to continue and you'd be charged for that program.

Unlike ON-TV's flat-rate fee of $17 a month (when the service began in '77), SelecTV's service was different. You'd pay for only the programs you select, if you don't watch, you don't pay. If I recall, the price of most movies would be around $3.00 or $3.50 with shorter programs around $.50 or $1.00.

SelecTV did a few changes over the next couple of years by first changing the name of its monthly program guide "Choice" to SelecTV magazine around 1980 or '81 and decided to charge a flat monthly rate of around $20 a month with an annual decoder terminal rental fee from $60/year when the service began to around $72/year. They also released new boxes that featured a four-digit number so the box's properly activated. On your monthly billing statement, you'd see two codes, one was the current code you're using, the other is for next months code. I don't recall what would happen if you changed the code a couple of days before or after the date so that your box would continue to work. I would always change the subscriber code on the date specified on the billing statement.

SelecTV would offer special pay-per-view boxing events on certain occasions throughout the year with fees ranging from $10 to around $40. Days before the fight, the service would conduct on-air tests to make sure there'd be no technical problems with the picture and audio when the boxing specials begin. Today, boxing pay-per-view events are more common place on cable/satellite.

SelecTV would offer a mid-afternoon matinee movie at around 2:00pm after the fiancial news/business programming ends for the day and would return to regular commercial programming at 5:00pm until it returned at 8:00pm. SelecTV gradually expanded its programming schedule in the weekday afternoons but would never broadcast 24 hours a day, seven days a week (like ON-TV did). They were under a contractual agreement with KWHY-TV since the station carried business news/stock market programming on days when the markets are open. They would only regulate the 24 hour broadcasting to weekends till late Sunday night when channel 22 signed off for weekly scheduled maintenance of its transmitter and studio facilities.

With the increasing growth of cable television in Southern California and more television options to choose from and more to come, SelecTV never achieved the success ON-TV had with subscriber base and more different kinds of entertainment. Channel 52's owner Oak Broadcasting Systems, Inc. sold the independent UHF station and advised its ON-TV viewers to surrender their decoder boxes back to the stations headquarters in Glendale, California since they were filing for bankruptcy protection. The station was later sold like I mentioned earlier and is now KVEA-TV and is a Telemundo affiliate.

I didn't get cable TV until January 1987 and still had SelecTV along with it. So, gradually we cancelled the SelecTV service and kept the cable. A year or two later, SelecTV filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and went under shortly thereafter. Spanish programming later returned to channel 22 in the afternoons, evenings and weekends after SelecTV's demise and later the station abandoned its stock market financial programming in 1999 after 32 years to concentrate on the stations upgrade to digital broadcasting.

Today, KWHY-TV is owned by Telemundo of Los Angeles, Inc., and is an independent Spanish-language television station broadcasting 18 hours a day of Spanish language entertainment and Shop at Home (http://www.shopathometv.com) airs nightly in English from 12:00 midnight-6:00am (PT) seven nights a week.

WTCG Atlanta went national via satellite on December 17 1976. It was renamed WTBS in 1979,
and eventually the national version just went by TBS.

Did you ever see the movie "Little Darlings?" There's a billboard for that station in one of the background shots.

And for the record, no we didn't have Cable TV in 1981.

There was also some kind of station called Preview or something like that we used to have. It used to be broadcast at least locally from WCLQ channel 61 in Cleveland. It was one of those you needed a box or the signal was scrambled, similar to the ones bossradio was talking about.