Comment on HBO Max is removing features from my plan without reducing my price.

• Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  That’s a false belief that keeps getting spread, cable TV started as the same channels with clear reception instead of having to rely on antennas, then some exclusive channels started appearing without commercials, but it wasn’t the norm.

  www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/7wxRbKq9Dj

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  • LillyPip@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I mean, I’m not going off a belief, I actually lived this.

    Where are you getting your information? I’d love a link.

    Yes, the clear reception vs bunny ears was awesome, but I’m talking specifically about the content. My family were always early adopters of technology (I started gaming in ‘79 with both the Intellivision and Atari – Intellivision was far superior). We had HBO, Cinemax, and Showtime as soon as they were available.

    I’m talking about the late 70s and early 80s when they were commercially available to the masses and the cable wars began.

    The late 70s were absolutely the early days of commercial cable tv.

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    • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I mean, I’m not going off a belief, I actually lived this.

      Yes, the clear reception vs bunny ears was awesome, but that was also limited on televisions like this, and I’m talking specifically about the content.

      I’m talking about the late 70s and early 80s when they were commercially available to the masses and the cable wars began.

      The late 70s were absolutely the early days of commercial cable tv.

      This is my recollection as well; I was a young adult at the time.

      Cable was ABSOLUTELY supposed to be ad-free. Ad-free, and local access so that anyone could have their own show. That was the tradeoff to get people away from the big three (ABC, CBS, NBC) at the time. There were literally no ads.

      But it didn’t last long at all. Local stayed ad-free for much longer; anything national came with ads embedded. Even the very first day of MTV had ads.

      And before anyone screeches at me about what link said what, forget it. I’m not interested in reading text about how the 60s and 70s were supposed to have taken place written by people don’t even know what it means to unplug or hang up a phone, or why anyone would even do that, or what green stamps were, or what happens when you lie on the floor with your head between two speakers listening to Pink Floyd, lol.

      LillyPip is factually correct. You should be listening to them instead of trying to retcon history for them.

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      • LillyPip@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        hat happens when you lie on the floor with your head between two speakers listening to Pink Floyd.

        I’d forgotten how much I should miss this.

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      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        And before anyone screeches at me about what link said what, forget it. I’m not interested in reading text about how the 60s and 70s were supposed to have taken place

        Check any sources on cable TV history, it’s all the same. Just because you decide to ignore it doesn’t make it false, it just proves your ignorance.

        Here, since you “don’t want to read”, this one has a nice graphic that should make it easy for your brain ☺️

        cablecompare.com/…/the-complete-history-of-cable-…

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    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      The late 70s were absolutely the early days of commercial cable tv.

      I provided a source with more sources, no it wasn’t.

      Need more? There:

      …wikipedia.org/…/Cable_television_in_the_United_S…

      The majority of channels has commercials, the ones you paid extra for (like HBO) didn’t, they weren’t the majority and the one of paying for cable wasn’t too remove ads, you still had them on the majority of the channels because they were the same as what you got with antennas.

      You’re not the only one who lived it buddy, you just don’t remember it properly.

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      • LillyPip@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        How old are you?

        I don’t need links to tell me what this was like when I vividly remember.

        Yea, cable television first became available in 1948. Regular middle class families did not have cable television for a long time after that.

        Mobile phone service was available in 1959. Guess how many people had it? A good friend of my family had a car phone in the mid 70s. Guess how common that was?

        You can’t go by invention dates on stuff like this. You’ll be amazed at how long some things take to gain market acceptance.

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      • BallsInTheShredder@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        According to the wiki article that you linked:

        However, due to many legal, regulatory and technological obstacles, cable television in the United States in its first 24 years was used almost exclusively to relay terrestrial commercial television stations to remote and inaccessible areas. It also became popular in other areas in which mountainous terrain caused poor reception over the air. Original programming over cable came in 1972 with deregulation of the industry.[1]

        So basically for that first 24 years - around '1948 -'72 it was primarily used to get broadcast television to people in areas with poor reception.

        Then came cable companies, producing content… without as many commercials as OTA t.v. I wasn’t born early enough to know the 70’s, but did grow up with antenna television and remember being introduced to cable. First thing I noticed was that there weren’t any ads at all on some channels. When I was a kid the ad free channels on my setup were 09, 10, 19, 20, 21, and some others I’m likely forgetting. I didn’t actually have too many more than that, and a lot of that was filler. The ad free channels were the meat and potatoes of my experience!

        So, maybe history doesn’t say it was marketed that way, maybe the cable companies didn’t either, I won’t claim to know, but I will tell you that seeing channels without ads was a pitch on its own back then, you noticed it when you visited others homes and talked about it, others noticed when they visited out home and thought about getting it themselves etc.

        Maybe it wasn’t a pitch, and the whole deal, but it was damned sure a selling point.

        We got reception just fine, somehow even in my rural area, what we didn’t get was relatively new, commercial free movies, or titties.

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