 This is the SF Productions podcast network. This is the 10th, this is the 3rd, that Darren Pramila Ferdin. Welcome to the place your parents didn't understand. The world of 60s and 70s television. Welcome to Vast Wasteland. Welcome home. And welcome to Vast Wasteland, the video journal of popular culture. I'm Mark Smibauer along with Wilbert Neal and Marty Wiley. Well, tonight we're going to talk about the history of cable TV. As we know it. As we know it. That's right. That's right. How did that happen? We're all together again. It's been so darn long. Seems like forever. But we're all back again. And here to tell you that we're on Tuesdays at 6. Maybe. Maybe. But probably not. But there's a pretty good guarantee. At least a 90% chance that we'll be on Wednesdays at 10. And I'd say almost a fair. Almost. It's a pretty sure shot of Thursdays at 3 p.m. And maybe on Saturday, whenever the engineers want to show us. So, but the Wednesday and Thursday are probably your best bet. And let's right now you're watching on Tuesday. Screws everything up. And then. Just want to tell you if you want to write into us or write in ACTV and say, What the heck is the deal? When are you going to start getting a regular schedule? That girl have any shoes? You want to write into box 151411 Columbus, Ohio 43215. And there it is. That's right. So. Let's see. The history of cable TV. Well, I'd say, well, you got to look at the beginning. Why, why you have cable TV in the first place or why it started actually started in eastern Pennsylvania where people live between valleys of like the Appalachians and couldn't get any TV. And actually this, I think that's like the first system was this guy wanted to sell TVs in that town and nobody would buy him because nobody could pick up anything. So he said, well, I'll take an intent up to the top of that mountain over there and run a cable down and I'll run a cable to everybody's house. And that was like part that was like when you bought the TV from the guy that was like built into the price. And that's right. Oh, yeah. And what a monopoly. He was the only TV dealer in town. That's right. So, um, that was the beginning of the cable TV and basically put. Was that part of the Turner family? No, no. And basically that's how things. His name was Mr. Haney. Yeah. Hey there, Mr. Douglas. Well, let's see. So that was basically how cable for the most part was for about 20 years or so. It was people couldn't get good reception and would pay for to get local channels and close to local as they could get. Right. Yeah. You might get like a, like maybe a channel from a nearby city, but that was about it. Pixley. Pixley. You pick up the pixley stage and W, PXL, I think. That's a pixel. I think I come from one of the last places in the world to get cable because it just really wasn't necessary. Well, yeah. It's like a valley of television. If you're in the middle of it, yeah, nobody bought cable then. Yeah. Please, Cincinnati and Dayton. Right. You've got every channel up and down the dial practically. So I think it's, I don't think they've had cable a very long time where my parents still live there. And gee, I think maybe they've only had cable maybe five or six years. Right. Hardly anybody bought cable back then because it, you know, unless you're out in the middle of nowhere, basically. Back in the latter part of the 60s, I had some friends that lived in Mansfield. And we'd go there on weekends or so to visit. And one time we're there, stalking in there saying, ooh, let's watch TV. We've got the cable. And I was like, okay. There was only one company back then. The cable. They were just called TAC. The TAC cable. The cable. TCC, the cable company. That was, they see some big, some great massive thing coming out of their TV, you know. We've got the cable. So I just didn't know what to expect. What did they have on the cable? Well, it was pretty much the same to me. They always had different shows there. So it just seemed to be the same different shows, but they were all proud because they had the cable. Got an exception. And I said, well, we've got a TV. We've got the antenna. That difference. But that was true after they got the cable. They didn't have their big, you know, the big aerial global antenna thing. Oh, antenna used to be so wild. You could get, you know, if you like had some bucks, you could get like an antenna that you have this thing on top of your TV so you could adjust where your antenna was picking up from. I mean, that's if you had a real hot antenna. Oh, my dad had one of those. And then you could pick up Indianapolis. You could keep playing with that. You know, it's like you'd hear somebody playing with the next room. You'd hear this. The predecessor to our satellite. That's right. The great big motorized antenna. That's right. I always expect to hear those theremin sounds. You just had a regular antenna. A couple of times a year you had to climb up on the roof and readjust it because the wind had blown it out. And that's just something I think was very common when we were growing up with every house had an antenna. And now the antenna blows down. Nobody cares because nobody uses it. Everyone says this is a cable. You've got the cable. Personally, you know, you'd have your rabbit ears and they would break and you'd had to get the foil. And the unwire the hanger. And then you had to twist it. Spin it into like a bowling ball shape or something. And the more bends you had in it, it seemed like the better. You'd turn it just so. And you had that funny round antenna for the UH antenna. It never really worked. It was like something they gave you to screw on the back of your TV so it looked like you'd be getting UH antenna. You know it would fold down, you'd fold it up. Expect to have just be a button on your remote control. You'd push the button that thing would fold out and then you'd do it. Oh, we didn't have remote control. That's true. There were no remote controls back then. You had to get up off your butt and shave the channel. That's why people were healthier. That's right. The first remote controls were like... They had cords. They were like, well, even the wireless ones, there were five buttons on it. It was like on and off and there was a button, it was like volume up and volume down and channel up and channel down. And you'd change channels and it would still be the mechanical system. So it would be like... It was a huge feeling of power, though, as you're making this sound just from this little device. And they actually turned the knob to... Oh, yeah. The knob actually turned. Do you know there are children now in my house that don't know how... Well, they know now, but until they got their own little portable... They had no idea how you got a different channel. That's right. I mean, where was the remote? Where was the button? Where was something to push? I had to go in and teach them to change the channel. It was like, what's wrong with you? Let's not forget the UHF channel changer. Oh! Oh, that one is still working on it. That just seemed like a... We should get it in one channel and leave it. You had the little... You had the thing and you had to keep turning that knob. It'd make about 50... 50, 50... 50 revolutions before it would even turn from one channel to the next. It didn't feel like you were really just fine tuning in. Oh, yeah. Right there. Oh! I got that obscure station from some hometown. You know, after we... I'm almost embarrassed to say this, but after we got our first color television, it was like we were used to the three channels, the three major, the ABC, the CBS, the NBC, and we got this other knob on there now, so we turned it and, you know, it's like UHF. And then we turned this and it was like, oh, we're almost getting it. We're almost getting it. We were so excited. We were almost getting some other channel. And my godmother came over and said, oh, what are you doing? Well, we could almost get it. And I said, channel 34! And I went back. We got the new AC. No, no, no. It was about a month or so. You know, trying to turn that thing. He needs a little fuzzy. Oh, we're almost getting it. There's snow and everything. And then she's... Oh! Okay, but see, this is a concept too that some kids that I know in my house could not grasp that we have black and white TV. Right. And I mean, Wilbert gave them a nice explanation was that, well, you know, that's the way the world was. It was in black and white. There was a world vote. We better go to color. I mean, gosh, it was like, yeah, I voted for it. But it was like... It was like the Wizard of Oz idea so well. It was black and white. It was black and white. We used to watch the beginning. Some people around the block had a big color TV. Who was it, Ross? We would watch the first part at my house and then we would run around the block and go to their house to see the color part. Ha ha ha ha! Don't ask me why it became a tradition. You just like, grab the popcorn and run over to the Neelys. There was also the phony color thing. The plastic thing. The rainbow thing. See, we had the huge admiral. Ah, admiral! Huge! I mean, you know, we had more guys to lift it. It would take like five minutes to really warm up till the colors were even closed. I remember the color TVs having to warm up. It would be like, it would be kind of green and then it would kind of fade over into red. Oh, there we go! I don't remember that. It's like, oh, I'm going to watch a show in about five minutes. I better turn on the TV and let it warm up for a while. Turn on what secret agent, man, until Get Smart comes around. I know it was the early 70s when my family got a color TV. That's right. And we were just like sitting there like fooled. It was like so amazing. Look, we have a color TV in our house. My dad has always been into gadgets. My dad's always been into gadgets and so he was one of the first people in town, I think, to get cable. We got cable, like, in 77, I think. And at the time it was really funny that we actually went for I think it was called Star Channel back then. It's now the movie channel. Star Channel? And at that time, this was like, they just started. They just started doing the movie channel concept and it's like, today we're going to show this movie over and over again. Tomorrow we're going to show another movie. Who's called the Movie Channel? And they meant it. I didn't think I saw cable until it was like 79 or so and I happened to be at a party at someone's place in, I think it was Middletown, Ohio. And the first thing I saw was the Omen. And I didn't really realize that they had cable because it was really new. They're really, really new. And it's like, we start watching this movie and it's like, I'm going, Where's the commercial go? Come on. I was like, where's the commercial go? Where's that? And that's when they explained to me, oh, this is cable. Ooh. Oh, cable. Oh, that's something I really had to get used to because when I moved up here, it was like 80 and cable was so common here. Well, because of Dark Cube. We should go into this Dark Cube thing. A lot of people who've lived in Columbus for a while will remember Cube. And a lot of people, in fact, still call Warner Cable Cube. Warner Cable brought in this, right, brought in this. They don't want to cut us off again. That's right. They had this great concept of interactive cable. It was pretty much way ahead of its time to the point that it was just a silly concept at the time. It was like a wired remote, which many of you people if you have the old-ware cable still have, you wonder why you have a wired remote and everybody else has the new wireless one, Cube. They're still trying to get their money back from the whole Cube thing. I just always had the idea that I lived in a non-Cube area but I had the idea that Cube was so they could monitor what you were seeing and what you were watching. And I said, well, I don't want that. There were also shows where you could, like, vote. I don't want nobody to know that I'm watching the Playboy channel. In fact, it was just a big fiasco. But, ironically, what came out of it, because they were desperate for original material was that people developed new forms of entertainment which went on actually to become depending on who you talk to went on to become MTV and Nickelodeon and CNN. I mean, it's like... I remember when Nickelodeon started at 7 or 8 in the morning and went off at 8 o'clock at night and then the channel was arts and entertainment. Well, it was probably arts back then. Back when it was arts. In the arts channel. Which CBS owned and then it went out of business and then they sold it off to the other people, the entertainment channel or something like that. It became arts and entertainment. How do you know about when Cube finally went out of... He stepped out of the... 1984. Oh, that was the last name. Death of Cube. How about when Cube finally died out? 1984. The most... I think the most... The channel that really struck me the most when I first got up here and got to watching cable was TBS. Ted Turner and he had some really good shows that he was doing himself with Bill Tush. Right. I remember those. And the whole... TBS was really a new station. Well, that was back when they were WTBS. WTBS. And then Ted Turner had bought the rights to Braves games. He was cable and cable wasn't cool. Right. And he said, well, I can start other outlets want to get this all. I'll slap it up on a satellite and anybody can pull it down and pay me royalties or whatever. And of course it became the first Super Station. Which now according to the new rules that I won't get into because it's too complicated. Basically, you're never going to see any more Super Stations pop up. Because actually, I mean, it's rerun Heaven. Right. You got TBS, you got WOR out of New York. You got WGN out of Chicago. And you've got a channel, I think, out of San Francisco that nobody on like, east of the Mississippi yet. I don't think. We basically don't get anything for a lot of money. No, actually, we just get TBS. What happened was basically a channel like WOR was certain to charge a lot more money and they said, no, we don't need you. I liked WOR when I had WOR. And I got to watch that. We were participating Cobb L.A. Scream dealer. It's Fuzzy the Whale. Yeah, Fuzzy the Whale. We got to watch Morton Downey before he went syndicated. And the show was really pretty wild there. And it was another show. Oh, it was a show he was watching the afternoon. It was a talk show. It was a thrill. It was a good little talk show. Can't find it no more. Oh, you remember that guy? No, no, no. But it was a good show. We also had... Sometimes I've had Ms. Molly on there from wrong room. I also had the two channels that collectively I like to call the Nazi channel because they... Discovery and on Arts and Entertainment because 24 hours a day one or the other or both channels have a World War II documentary on it. They're getting better, Mark. I'm taking a history series off of Discovery about the American and Native Americans. They're both fine channels, but they show at least they used to way too many World War II documentaries. It's like, okay, get your World War II documentary fix. In Columbus here, Cable kind of went... On the east side, they always seem to have their coax over there on the east side. Coax of all east side. The north was... Well, it kind of went around north and over on northwest, north and northwest, you had Cube up around here. And south, they had... All America. Central. In central Columbus, well, I live in like the upper, lower, middle, east, northeast side. You'll never find us out now. There was no cable. There was no cable in our area until the late 70s, early 80s. The late 70s. We have some dial phones, too. We still got the rotary phones. There is no touchstone. We just sit outside in the summer and we can watch stage brush rolling. That's a true story. But we just did not have cable and I would always look at a TV guy back in the middle of the early 70s. I would always have a TV guy in person and I'd look in there and I'd go, ooh, home box office. A new thing. I hope everybody will get it and not just those people with cable. And then sure enough it would show up cable. I was flipping, you know. Home box office. And then it got short HBO. And also, my girlfriend at the time got HBO. I was out of the country and came back and they had cable. This is amazing. They had to wait until he left to get cable. They had to wait until I was done. They would bring in all the equipment and they would sit up and we'd watch it, see movies. It was great. And then it like, oh, after that last movie went off it like, oh, one o'clock, 1.32 or so. Home box office is now shutting down for the evening. And then it would go off. And it was like, oh, ow, it must be, it was like, you know, when you used to hear the da-da-da-da-da. And then it would go off. I was in there like on Friday nights I would have all these wild shows on. And gosh, I can't even remember what it was like. National Lampoon had a show on. I can't remember what it was called, but it was a National Lampoon show. And that would be on. Well, Pee-wee, the Pee-wee's... Pee-wee was on HBO. It was the Pee-wee Herman special. It wasn't called Pee-wee's play house, but it was like Pee-wee's fun time or something like that. And it was his nightclub. It was a wild thing back then. It was just wild. And there's... I know when I lived on the northeast end I had a playboy channel. But I actually didn't just show filthy movies. I had a really good news show. And they came on at like eight or nine o'clock in the evening. And, you know, like my kids were already in bed. My kids were very little then. And they were already away in bed. One night I like slipped it on because the news, according to Playboy, was coming on. And my little one creeped up the steps from his room. And they just kind of opened the channel with a montage of boobs, you know. And I remember hearing this little boy saying, Oh! Well, now I think they made that a... At least Warner made that for a pay-for-view deal or something. Oh, is that what Playboy channel is? Yeah, I think that's how they did it over, at least on the New Warner. You know, isn't that whole thing... Isn't that just like... I don't know, it's like... Well, I won't say beating a dead horse, but overfeeding a live one or something. Okay, well, what do you got? You got to pay or you get a TV or you get a new TV. Well, we've got to pay for that. Okay, okay, okay. Well, we've got to get cable, okay. Well, we've got to pay for that. You want extra channels, okay. We got your movie channels and things like that. You got the basic thing. You got your movie channels. Pay-for-view. Another level. So, if you want to watch something extra special or extra new or something does happen... If you want to see something a month before it goes on your HBO or your cinema... Right. You want to watch it a month before anybody else can pay extra money to see it. You don't want to go to the theater. Sometimes you go to the dollar theater and see it. Oh, it's showing the pay-for-view. It's a cheaper money. We're just paying that much more. We want to go to that whole Olympic triple cast thing. What a fiasco that was. That was a money-making for somebody. I don't think the concept was... I don't think the concept was... The concept was we'll make more money. I hate to tell the cable industry, but sports pay-for-view is just never going to work because people are like, oh, just go to the bar and see it. Yeah. The bar can afford to pay for it. Yeah, for real. It's not going to happen. I think the bar did that because there were so many people that didn't want to pay for it. They said, hey, this is out there. We can pay for it. They're buying drinks. They'll pay for it. They'll be almost free for us. We'll just sit back and rake it in. They'll be able to watch it and that's it. I've never gotten any pay-for-view and I don't think I ever really will unless they have something that's absolutely, like, you know, I don't know. The second coming or something. The second coming. I'll pay for it. God told us. We have to do the right. That's about as religious as we're going to get out here. That's right. Well, basically now in the industry, you've got three titans of the cable industry. You've got, of course, Turner. You've got HBO and you've got Viacom. And Turner's got CNN and TNT and Cartoon Channel and CNN Headline News and Meanwhile, HBO's got HBO one, two and three and Cinemax is one and two and half a Comedy Central. Last night, I actually got a call from some survey company working for Warner and they said in your area would you be aware that there's like these HBO one and two and I'm like, yes, I'm very aware of it, I don't have it. Well, do you think it would enhance your cable system to have it? I'm like, you mean I could have this other channel paying the same money that I pay for one? Yeah, I think it would enhance something. Yeah, it would enhance quite a bit. Well, this made me feel like I've got something here. So, yeah, this would kind of be like a, you know, be a value. Of course, it would be a lot better to get to Cartoon Channel. It would be a science fiction channel. Science fiction channel would be wonderful. I've heard some stuff about science fiction channel and everything I've heard is not good. Oh, that's too bad. A lot of people, I knew some people who were huge science fiction fans and were like, oh boy! It's like, this isn't that good. Well, I wish I had had the chance to find out for myself if it's not good or not. That's true. Well, basically, we're now seeing everything going from, you know, I think the broadcast networks are just basically going to slowly fade out away. They're already starting to do that and you're going to see more narrow casting. Narrow casting. Broadcasting? Narrow casting. Narrow casting. That's one of the reasons why I think why public access, of course, you've probably been hearing that... Which is not narrow-minded casting. No. You've probably been hearing that personally, I don't think it is, because there's going to be so many channels out there that they're going to have to fill them up with something. Oh, we'll take that public access stuff. We'll take the public access stuff. We've got 800 channels to fill up. What are we going to do? You know, we're only going to have two of these. The antique channel, or, you know... They were going to learn anything. Popeye cartoon channel. That's it. Just Popeye. 21 hours a day. Oh, Popeye. All the time. It's pretty scary. You know, personally, though, I think the future of TV came with TV. Interactive. Oh, where's the MZ? A rhino! No. Anyway, that's about all for Fast Wasteland for this time. And next time... We can talk about this again. But next time, the episode is... Was Paul in another band before Wings? We'll find out next time. Fast Wasteland. We'll see you next time. Good on, everybody! Welcome. Thank you.