Inventors: John Walson

Cable television has had a major impact on the culture of our country, and has greatly increased television use.
The first cable television system was created in the small Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, in 1948. John Walson owned a store that was not selling TVs well, as the city was in the mountains and reception was extremely poor. He built a large antenna on the top of a nearby mountain, and ran cable down to his store. He expanded the cable to anyone that bought a TV set, and the system continued to grow and became updated.
Around the same time, Milton Shapp developed a system to consolidate all the antennas for televisions into one main antenna for the entire building. Before his system, each television needed a separate antenna, necessitating numerous antennas on the tops of department stores and other large buildings. His system used coaxial cable and signal amplifiers. Using this system, cable came into a form similar to what is used today. At first, cable was used just as a better antenna. However, soon microwave was used to bring in signals from distant cities, and cable became more popular as it offered more choices.
Pay television, another major advance in cable, was introduced with HBO in 1972. It was also the first signal to be beamed using a satellite, instead of the microwave typically used. The use of satellite meant that the signal could be received all over the U.S., and the channel had an advantage over the microwave distributed stations. Pay television is credited with causing the wide growth that has been seen by cable television in recent years.
Cable has allowed shows to be seen nationally, and for news to be broadcast all across the world simultaneously. It has had a tremendous effect on our culture, allowing trends to be spread, along with music and popular television shows, especially for being such a new technology, only fifty years old. Almost sixty percent of U.S. households receive cable programming, and as more channels and features become available, the growth and benefit of cable will become enormous. (see also Satellite TV and Color TV.)

*Pictures from Microsoft Electronic Encarta Encyclopedia Edition 2002

Sources:
Kansas State University. History: Learn About the Beginning and Development of Cable Television. 19 October 2003. <http://www.telecom.ksu.edu/cable/history.html>

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