[Froedlich]

We had two broadcast TV channels where we lived when I was growing up in the 1970s. My Dad signed up for cable TV. It ran 24/7 instead of 6AM-to-midnight (yes, broadcast TV went off the air at midnight in many areas) and it had no commercials.

A few years after getting cable, they started running ads on it. Dad for furious. "No ads" was one of the things he was paying for, as he saw it.

Ironically, half the ads - at least in the beginning - were urging people to sign up for cable TV. But people couldn't see the ads unless they already had cable TV...

[raw_anon_1111]

This is completely untrue. Cable TV always had ads.

1. The first thing that cable was used for was to get over the air networks to rural areas that couldn’t get a signal - these always had ads

2. The second was “Superstations” that were former local independent stations that ran ads like TBS. They always had ads.

3. The third wave was MTV, USA, Lifetime, (or its precursor), ESPN etc - they always had ads

The only reason you didn’t see many ads was because the cable native channels were still trying to convince companies to buy ads.

[icedchai]

Not entirely true. The "premium" channels (HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, Bravo, The Movie Channel, etc.) never had ads.

Then there were channels like Nickelodeon that originally had no ads, then added them in the mid 80's. I remember this distinctly because I was annoyed by it. My parents got cable in 1980 when it first came to our area.

[raw_anon_1111]

It was only because they didn’t have enough viewers to convince companies to pay for ads.

[icedchai]

The "premium" movie channels had tons of paying subscribers. They didn't need ads. It was very much a selling point for those channels.

[raw_anon_1111]

I was talking about Nickelodeon