1. Cable Television: History of Technology Community Antenna Television: CATV Originally developed in central Pennsylvania and New York. Master antenna with line-of- sight to broadcast television transmitters captured signals. Those signals were then delivered to homes in the valleys via “cables.” Mountain Antenna Home Distributor

2. Cable Television: History of Technology Cable Television Derived from CATV, Cable television adds satellite delivered programming and a more sophisticated organization and delivery system: the “headend.” Mountain Antenna Home Satellite Signals HeadendHome

3. Cable Television: Early History 1967: Must-carry rules guarantee local broadcast stations carriage on cable systems. 1975: Home Box Office offers satellite delivered premium channels by subscription (no advertising). 1976: Satellite delivered “superstations.” 1970-1986: Competition for franchises granted by communities, often with exaggerated “franchise fee” estimates and elaborate promises for community access cable channels (PEG: public, educational, government). Often allowed for “leased channels” available to the public for a fee (also known as local origination). Mid 1980s: Growth of Multiple System Owners (MSOs), leading to concentration of ownership of both cable systems and cable program services, especially after 1986 Act.

4. Cable Television: Programming Tier service: By the early 1980s, most cable systems offered multiple levels of service organized into tiers: Basic: Includes local broadcast channels, advertiser supported cable services, and access programming. Upper Tier: More desirable cable services, such as sports networks and movie channels. Premium: Subscription pay channels such as HBO that are often offered “ala carte.” Pay-per-view

5. Cable Television: Programming Narrowcasting:Cable channels provide specialized programming for desired demographics. In this way, cable replicated television (general audience channels such as USA Network and TNT) as well as radio and magazines (such as ESPN, Food TV Network, and HGTV). Pay-per-View and Interactive: Uses advanced technology (fiber optics and digital connectivity). Cable Radio: Uses excess channel capacity to provide CD quality music channels.

6. Cable Television: Regulation Prior to 1986, local regulation prevailed except where Federal jurisdiction prevailed (such as must carry rules and regulation of satellite delivery. Cable Communication Policy Act of 1986 : effectively deregulates the local cable franchises. Cable Reregulation Act of 1992 : reregulated cable franchise rate structures. Also “retransmission consent” allows local broadcasters to ask for compensation for cable carriage OR get guaranteed carriage for free. Telecommunications Act of 1996 : authorizes phase out of 1992 regulations and offers incentives for competition with the telephone companies in various services.

7. Cable Television: Competition MDS: Microwave delivered “wireless cable.” Has limited channel capacity, but cheaper. TVRO: C-band satellite delivery. Big dishes with increasingly narrow program offerings since the advent of wide-scale signal scrambling. DBS: Direct broadcast satellite. Ku-band satellite delivery in program services such as DirecTV. World Wide Web: Television delivery system of the future? P2P File sharing as distribution mode.