ABSTRACT

Cable television is wired communication to the home. Cable television (also called community antenna television or CATV) was first developed in the late 1940s in communities unable to receive conventional broadcast television signals owing to distance or geographic factors. Cable systems located their antennas in areas having poor reception, picked up broadcast signals and then distributed them by means of coaxial cable to subscribers for a fee. The cities of Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, and Astoria, Oregon, are credited with having been the first two communities in the U.S. to offer CATV service to their residents.1