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A television distribution system in which station signals, picked up by elevated antennas, are delivered by cable to the receivers of subscribers. Also called cable TV, community antenna television.
(Community Antenna TV) The original name for cable TV. It used a single antenna at the highest location in the community in order to deliver a quality signal to homes in areas with hilly terrain or other interference. Dating back to the late 1940s, the term is still used for cable TV service. See cable TV.
Independent service, purchased by subscription to cable service systems, whereby television signals are carried to households by direct wires (coaxial or fiber-optic cables). Begun in the late 1940s as Community Antenna Television (CATV), cable television was a method of improving over-the-air television broadcasting, particularly in remote areas where reception was difficult. Essentially, CATV operated by means of a huge master antenna that picked up over-the-air television signals and then transmitted the signals to subscriber homes by cable. With the launching of the Satcom satellite in 1975, a great many more stations and services became available for subscribers, the development of cable-exclusive networks such as ESPN became possible, and cable television began growing at a rapid rate, grabbing a larger and larger share of the national viewing audience every year.
Offering a multitude of options for the viewing audience including cable-exclusive networks and local, regional, and faraway stations, cable television currently reaches approximately 72% of television households in the United States, which has greatly expanded the advertisers' media options for delivering commercial messages. Cable television also offers a great variety of special interest channels devoted to subjects such as food, history, home and garden, health, or ethnic issues, offering advertisers access to more narrowly defined target audiences than those available through the six major national networks (CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, Warner Bros., UPN) and resulting in the evolution of specialized niche advertising. Cable also offers a number of options for marketers attempting to reach specific ethnic audiences. For example: One cable network dedicated entirely to Spanish-language programming reports 5 million subscribers. This network presents an excellent venue for advertisers attempting to reach the Spanish-speaking market.
In addition to basic cable service, most cable service systems offer noncommercial movie channels such as Home Box Office (HBO) or Showtime to subscribers for an additional fee. See also audience fragmentation; interactive television; very high frequency.
Cable television; using a satellite dish or high master antenna to receive distant television signals and then selling the service to residents of a city or town. Cable subscribers may receive national network television broadcasts, other specialized stations, and the opportunity to subscribe to premium channels, such as HBO, at an additional cost.
For more information on cable television, visit Britannica.com.
During the 1980s and early 90s, the growing number of cable networks, improved programming, increased channel capacity (which reached 150 in some systems by 1992), and greater freedom in terms of programming content greatly expanded the industry. There are 10,828 operating cable systems in the United States serving 28,798 communities and 62 million subscribers; this comprises about 64% of all households. Viewers pay a monthly fee for a package of cable television programming, known as basic cable, and additional monthly fees for networks such as HBO, which are known as pay TV services. Cable television offers a wide variety of specialized programming, including channels devoted to specific interests, such as news, sports, movies, business information, weather, cooking, home shopping, and family viewing. It can also transmit programs from foreign cities, such as the proceedings of the British House of Commons. The industry finances its programming from subscriber fees and advertising revenue. New technologies, such as fiber optics, digital compression, and interactive television, allow cable operators to offer more programming choices and services. The cable lines installed by cable operators are also to use to provide broadband Internet access to the homes of subscribers.
Bibliography
See G. Mair, Inside HBO (1984); T. Baldwin, Cable Communications (1988).
The cable TV industry exploded from modest beginnings in the 1950s into a service that by 1993 reached 61.5 percent of all the U.S. households that had television. Cable was initially a response to a need for improved transmission in areas where signals were weak or nonexistent. By the 1960s, consumers began to demand not only better reception but also more signals. This demand fueled the exponential growth of the industry. In 1993, more than 11,385 cable systems serviced 57,211,600 homes in the United States. The industry has faced many legal issues, including programming and rate regulation, lack of competition, and customer service complaints.
The most contentious issue in cable television arises from Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations that require cable operators to allot up to one-third of their channels to local broadcast stations. Known as must-carry rules, these were first enacted in the 1960s in an effort to protect the interests of local broadcasters. In 1985 and 1987, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that must-carry rules, as promulgated at the time, violated the First Amendment (see Quincy Cable TV v. FCC, 768 F.2d 1434 [1985], cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1169, 106 S. Ct. 2889, 90 L. Ed. 2d 977 [1986]; Century Communications Corp. v. FCC, 835 F.2d 292 [1987], cert. denied sub nom. Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ v. FCC, 486 U.S. 1032, 108 S. Ct. 2014, 129 L. Ed. 2d 497 [1988]).
Congress addressed the must-carry issue in the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992 (47 U.S.C.A. § 325 et seq.). The 1992 Cable Act, passed over President George Bush's veto, required cable systems to carry most local broadcast channels and prohibited cable operators from charging local broadcasters to carry their signal. These requirements were challenged on First Amendment grounds in Turner Broadcasting System v. FCC, 512 U.S. 622, 114 S. Ct. 2445, 129 L. Ed. 2d 497 (1994). Turner Broadcasting asked the Court to apply a strict scrutiny test, similar to the one used to evaluate the constitutionality of restrictions on printed material, to determine whether the FCC's regulations infringed the industry's freedom of speech. The FCC urged the Court to apply the same relaxed standard it had applied to broadcast media in Red Lion Broadcasting v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367, 89 S. Ct. 1794, 23 L. Ed. 2d 371 (1969). The Court took a middle ground on cable communications. Noting that cable television is neither strictly a broadcast medium nor a print medium, the Court held that the relaxed scrutiny test adopted in Red Lion was inappropriate, but declined to adopt the strict scrutiny protection given to print publications. The Court held that any regulations that are content neutral — in other words, that do not dictate the content of programming and that have an incidental burden on free speech — will be judged by an "intermediate level of scrutiny." Any regulations found to be content based — in other words, that attempt to restrict programming based on its content — will receive the strict scrutiny applied to print media.
The regulation of the rates charged by cable companies is another area of contention between the industry and the government. Before 1984, local franchising authorities regulated the rates charged by franchisees. The 1984 Cable Communications Policy Act (46 U.S.C.A. §§ 484-487, 47 U.S.C.A. § 35, 152 et seq.), which was designed to promote competition and allow competitive market forces to determine rates, deregulated rates for almost all franchisees. Although industry representatives had argued that competition would keep rates reasonable, after deregulation, average monthly cable rates increased far faster than the rate of inflation, in some cases as much as three times faster. During the same period, the average cable subscriber received only six additional channels, and competition from other operators was almost nonexistent. In 1991, only fifty-three of the more than ninety-six hundred cable systems in the United States had a direct competitor in their service area.
The 1992 Cable Act provided a regulatory structure for basic and expanded programming, but exempted individually sold premium channels, such as HBO and the Disney Channel, and pay-per-view programming. The 1992 act authorized local governments to regulate programming, equipment, and service rates charged by companies in areas where there is no competition. Basic rates could be regulated but only under prescribed circumstances that indicate a lack of competition in the area. According to figures gathered in 1994, the new regulations led to average rate reductions of more than eight percent.
When Congress deregulated the cable industry with the 1984 Cable Act, its primary intent was to promote competition. The 1984 act sought to balance the government's dual goals of providing cable access to all areas and deregulating rates. The industry had argued that competitive market forces would produce competition and stabilize rates. However, competition did not occur in the ensuing years, and cable operators continued to enjoy a monopoly in virtually all service areas. Before 1992, exclusive cable franchises were granted to the bidders who promised the widest access and most balanced programming. The government felt that this was the best way to ensure that cable's new and expensive technology was available to people in poor and rural areas as well as more affluent areas. As a result, bidders who promised more than they delivered were protected from competition. The 1992 Cable Act eliminated many of the barriers to competition that existed before. Most important, it abolished the exclusive franchise agreement, which had been a powerful monopolistic tool.
Although the 1992 act did much to encourage competition, it did not address the 1984 act's ban on ownership of cable companies by local telephone utilities. This ban was challenged in Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. v. United States, 42 F.3d 181 (1994), in which the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held that it violated the telephone companies' First Amendment right to free speech. The ban was removed by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (110 Stat. 56), which President Clinton signed in February 1996.
Complaints about poor customer service have plagued the industry and grew in proportion to the phenomenal increase in subscribership during the 1970s and 1980s. A 1991 study conducted by Consumer Reports found that customer satisfaction with cable providers was the lowest it had been in sixteen years. Common complaints include the inability of customers to reach company representatives, missed or botched installation and service calls, service outages, and billing problems. The 1992 Cable Act directed the FCC to establish minimum customer service standards for the cable industry. The 1992 act authorized local governments to establish stronger customer service standards than those established by the FCC, and to do so unilaterally, without the consent of the cable operator.
See: Broadcasting; Federal Communications Commission; Telecommunications; Television.
Cable television is a system of providing cocoy television to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through fixed optical fibers or coaxial cables as opposed to the over-the-air method used in traditional television broadcasting (via radio waves) in which a television antenna is required. FM radio programming, high-speed Internet, telephony and similar non television services may also be provided.
The abbreviation CATV is often used to mean "Cable TV". It originally stood for Community Antenna Television, from cable television's origins in 1948: in areas where over-the-air reception was limited by mountainous terrain, large "community antennas" were constructed, and cable was run from them to individual homes.
It is most commonplace in North America, Europe, Australia and East Asia, though it is present in many other countries, mainly in South America and the Middle East. Cable TV has had little success in Africa, as it is not cost-effective to lay cables in sparsely populated areas, and although so-called "wireless cable" or microwave-based systems are used, "direct-to-home" satellite television is far more popular, especially in South Africa.
Cable television had its origins in the 1960s, when a CATV service started to operate in Junín.
Cable television is distributed in Brazil by various companies.
The first cable system started to operate in the early 1960s in Monterrey, as a CATV service (an antenna at the top of the Loma Larga, which could get TV signals from South Texas). Most of the other major cities didn't develop cable systems until the late 1980s, due to government censorship. By 1989 the industry had had a major impulse with the founding of Multivisión—a MMDS system who started to develop its own channels in Spanish—and the later development of companies such as Cablemas and Megacable.
Over the past few years, many US networks have started to develop content for the Latin American market, such as CNN en Español, MTV, Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, and others. The country also has a DTH service called SKY (Televisa & News Corp. owned). Recently DirecTV merged with Sky. The dominant company nowadays is Megacable and Grupo HEVI.[1]
The majority of American television viewers get their signal from CATV.
There are many cable operaters as Tbroad, C&M, CJ, etc in Korea. The CableTV subscriber is approximately 14 million. The cable operater provide TPS to subscriber in Korea.
Only one traditional cable provider operates in Hong Kong, i-Cable Communications Limited (branded as "CableTV"). Another three operators offer pay-TV via DSL and Ethernet, they are Now Broadband TV (PCCW), HKBN Digital TV and TVB PayVision.
Many people in Hong Kong subscribe to satellite TV services like STAR TV.
Kabelvision is the first cable television operator which starts its operation in 1995. In 2006, its holding company launches Digital 1, the latest cable television operator that requires digital setup box to be installed. Some of Kabelvision] network was later converted to Digital 1. In 2007, the holding company of the two cable television operator rebranded the two service as First Media home cable which incorporates Digital 1 technology. The company is owned by Lippo Group.
StarHub Cable Vision is the sole cable television operator in Singapore, where private ownership of satellite dishes is banned. StarHub Cable Vision was formed as a result of a merger between StarHub and Singapore Cable Vision on 15 May 2002. The latter first began broadcasting as a terrestrial pay-television operator in 1992 as the first cable network was not completed until 1995. Around 15% of households and offices in Singapore are connected to the StarHub network.
Lanka Broadband Networks is the only pay television broadcaster using cable networks to serve 10,000 customers.
Truevisions[2] is only exclusive CATV in Thailand, formerly known as UBC (United Broadcasting Corporation). Truevision is a subsidiary of True[3] provides CATV only in Bangkok area while DSTV (Digital Satellite TV) outside Bangkok.
Mega TV was launched in 1996 by TV3 as the only cable television service. However, it fail to expand its content, and so, it closed down in 2001, replaced by its competitor, the satellite television network Astro.
According the European Audiovisual Observatory, there were 58 million cable households in the European Union as of 31 December 2004, i.e. a rate of penetration of 32 % of the television households. 5.7 millions were connected to digital networks.
Belgium is the second most dense cabled country in the world after the Netherlands with over 99% of all households connected to cable television networks. Cable television was deployed nationwide in 1972 as a measure made by the government to eliminate the millions of antennas. Currently most cable companies are active on the triple-play market, offering television, telephone and internet services. Currently the analogue services are phased out to make way for digital television services and high definition television.
Romania has very high penetration rates for cable television in Europe, with over 79% of all households watching television through a CATV network in 2007 [2]. The market is extremely dynamic, and dominated by two giant companies -
Romanian based RCS&RDS and
The reasons for this appeal started in the early '90s. After the fall of the
communist regime, in 1989, there were only two state owned TV channels available (see TVR), one only being available in about 20% of the country. Private TV channels were slow to appear,
because of lack of experience and high start-up costs (most startups were radio
stations or newspapers). Thus, for the first three years, over the air, one would get
one or two state channels and one or two local, amateurish private channels, broadcasting only a few hours a day. In this
environment, cable TV companies appeared and thrived, providing 15-20 foreign channels for a very low price (at the time 2
USD or less), some with Romanian translation, offering high quality news,
entertainment and especially movies or cartoons (one of the ways cable companies advertised was the availability of a cartoon
channel, Cartoon Network, appealing to children, which in turn would appeal to their
parents). The first two companies to provide CATV were Multicanal in Bucharest and Timiş Cablu
in Timişoara, both out of business today. Many small, startup firms gradually grew, and
coverage increased (coverage wars were frequent in the early period, with many cable boxes smashed, and new cable networks
offering "half off for twice the channels" and immediately wiring the building for any willing persons). However, this period
soon ended, with consolidation around 1995-1996. Some large companies emerged: Kappa and RCS in Bucharest, Astral in
Cluj, UPC in Timişoara, TourImex in Râmnicu Vâlcea. This
consolidation came with gentlemen agreements over areas of control and pricing, with claims of monopoly abounding. This process
of consolidation was completed around 2005-2006, when only two big suppliers of cable remained: UPC-Astral and RDS. Internet over
coaxial cable has been available since around 2000, and IP telephony (over the CATV infrastructure) since the deregulation of the
market in 2003. Currently, cable TV is available in most of the country, including most rural areas (where lives roughly 50% of
the population). Satellite digital TV appeared in 2004, providing coverage for the rest of the country, with both RCS&RDS and
UPC-Astral having a stake in these companies. IPTV (over
Cable TV is very cheap for all standards, the standard/basic service, offering about 50 channels, is around 20-30 RON/month including VAT (about 7-10 €), with the most expensive service, offering 10-15 channels more, including some pay-per-view such as HBO or Cinemax, costing no more than 60-70 RON/month (around 20-23 €).
In Switzerland, virtually all households have cable TV. Ironically, despite this good coverage, Switzerland has only a few public TV stations (two each for the German, French and Italian-speaking parts of the country); additionally, there is now only one upstart commercial network with coverage comparable to these state-run channels. To watch news or political information, Swiss channels are preferred, but in the entertainment sector (feature movies, comedies, talk shows), private TV stations from Germany, France and Italy are dominant.
In the UK Cable Television had its origins in 1938, when the first Community Antenna TV systems were set up in towns including Bristol and Hull, for homes which couldn't receive transmissions over the air, operating on the national standard 405-line system. In the 1960s Rediffusion Vision was set up to provide cable television in the newer 625-line and PAL formats.
In the early 1980s Rediffusion Vision supplemented its service with other channels including The Music Box, Mirrorvision, Lifesyle Screensport, Sky Channel and TEN. The service was renamed as Rediffusion Cablevision.
In the United Kingdom, the current generation of cable television began in the late 1980s with the issue of franchises to many local operators. These small operations proved uneconomic and there was a continuing process of consolidation and re-financing.
By 2000 the two principal cable operators were NTL and Telewest. NTL's cable service was originally known as CableTel and grew rapidly through the acquisition of, among others, ComTel (which itself had bought Telecential), Comcast, Diamond Cable and finally, in 1999, the residential and small business operations of Cable & Wireless. Telewest acquired local cable operators including Eurobell (Plymouth and Sussex) Cable London (North franchise) Birmingham cable and large franchises in the North East and North West of England. The original Telewest cable company was created after mergers of United Artists and General Cable in the mid 1990's.
In 2005 it was announced that NTL and Telewest would merge, after a period of co-operation in the preceding few years. This merger was completed on 3 March 2006 with the company being named ntl Incorporated. For the time being the two brand names and services were marketed separately. However, following NTL's acquisition of Virgin Mobile, the NTL and Telewest services were rebranded Virgin Media on 2007-02-08 creating a single cable operator covering more than 95% of the UK cable market.
There are a small number of other surviving cable television companies in the UK outside of NTL including Kingston Communications (East Riding of Yorkshire), WightCable (Isle of Wight) and Smallworld (previously WightCable North) (Ayrshire, Carlisle and Lancashire).
Cable TV faces intense competition from BSkyB's
However, subscription-funded digital terrestrial television proved less of a competitive threat. The first system, ITV Digital, went into liquidation in 2002. Top Up TV later replaced it, however this service is shrinking as the DVB-T multiplex owners are finding FTA broadcasting more profitable.
Another potential source of competition in the future will be TV over broadband internet connections; this is known as IPTV. Some IPTV services are currently available in London, while services operated in Hull ceased in April 2006. As the speed and availability of broadband connections increase, more TV content can be delivered using protocols such as IPTV. However, its impact on the market is yet to be measured, as is consumer attitude toward watching TV programmes on computers instead of television sets. At the end of 2006, BT (the UK's former state owned monopoly phone company) started offering BT Vision which is digital freeview TV using an aerial, but also incorporates on demand TV, delivered over a broadband connection and displayed on a Television. This service was started due to high broadband speeds in the UK. There are plans for a 100 MB/s to be offered.
Cable television services have been available in Australia since 1991 or 1992, with Galaxy TV being the first. It became insolvent in 1997, due to decreasing popularity with the launching of Foxtel and Austar in May of 1995, two cable services that offered more variety than Galaxy TV. Foxtel immediately commenced in supplying programming to Galaxy's subscribers on an interim basis. In 1999 Foxtel was able to significantly boost its customer base by acquiring Galaxy TV's subscribers from the Australis Media liquidator and commenced offering its services on a satellite television platform. There are currently two major and four minor cable television providers in Australia - Foxtel and Optus TV. Minor providers include Austar, TransACT, Bright Telecommunications and Neighbourhood Cable, which only operate in limited areas.
Like the United Kingdom, cable is a minority means of receiving access to subscription television in Australia. Satellite distribution is more common.
Due to its history, financial backing and market dominance, most local versions of channels are either owned directly by Foxtel and Austar or through related companies.
In terms of coverage, Foxtel's cable network covers parts of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth. Optus's network covers small parts of Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, though its restrictive subscription rules means that many people living in apartments or confined living areas may be unable to be connected.
Austar is available by satellite in most of regional and rural Australia, but does have a small cable network in the city of Darwin. TransACT is only available in the city of Canberra, where a custom cable network was developed. A similar situation used to exist in Perth where a small area was covered by Bright Telecommunications (however they closed down after lack of funding) as well in parts of Geelong, Ballarat and Mildura that are reached by Neighbourhood Cable.
TelstraClear operates a cable television network in Wellington, Kapiti and Christchurch. Customers can subscribe to plans incorporating between 25 and 95 channels. Most content is offered on behalf of Sky Network Television, however, some channels such as TBN, Discovery Travel and Adventure and Deutsche Welle are broadcast exclusively through TelstraClear.
Coaxial cables are capable of bi-directional carriage of signals as well as the transmission of large amounts of data. Cable television signals use only a portion of the bandwidth available over coaxial lines. This leaves plenty of space available for other digital services such as broadband internet and cable telephony.
Broadband internet is achieved over coaxial cable by using cable modems to convert the network data into a type of digital signal that can be transferred over coaxial cable. One problem with some cable systems is the older amplifiers placed along the cable routes are unidirectional thus in order to allow for uploading of data the customer would need to use an analog modem to provide for the upstream connection. This limited the upstream speed to 31.2k and prevented the always-on convenience broadband internet typically provides. Many large cable systems have upgraded or are upgrading their equipment to allow for bi-directional signals, thus allowing for greater upload speed and always-on convenience, though these upgrades are expensive.
In North America and Europe many cable operators have already introduced cable telephone service, which operates just like existing fixed line operators. This service involves installing a special telephone interface at the customer's premises that converts the analog signals from the customer's in-home wiring into a digital signal, which is then sent on the local loop (replacing the analog last mile, or POTS) to the company's switching center, where it is connected to the PSTN. The biggest obstacle to cable telephone service is the need for nearly 100% reliable service for emergency calls. One of the standards available for digital cable telephony, PacketCable, seems to be the most promising and able to work with the Quality of Service demands of traditional analog POTS service. The biggest advantage to digital cable telephone service is similar to the advantage of digital cable TV, namely that data can be compressed, resulting in much less bandwidth used than a dedicated analog circuit-switched service. Other advantages include better voice quality and integration to a VoIP network providing cheap or unlimited nationwide and international calling. Note that in many cases, digital cable telephone service is separate from cable modem service being offered by many cable companies and does not rely on IP traffic or the Internet.
Beginning in 2004 in the United States, the traditional cable television providers and traditional telecommunication companies increasingly compete in providing voice, video and data services to residences. The combination of TV, telephony and Internet access is commonly called triple play regardless of whether CATV or telcos offer it.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
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