Cable Dilemma

Cable television needs your money. In order to continue providing their subscribers with all the quality news, weather, sporting events, educational programs, and blockbuster movies, they must increase their rates.

In the early days of cable television, one of the key selling points was commercial-free programming. HBO and Cinemax showed back to back blockbuster movies without any commercial interruptions during the movies or between movies. As more and more consumers subscribed, cable responded by adding more channels. In turn the cable companies also raised rates, citing the increased cost of providing these extra channels. Cable companies started including local broadcast stations in their channel lineups. These regular broadcast stations still had commercials to cover their operation costs. No longer was it necessary to have large directional antennas on top of your home to bring in broadcast signals. Cable’s popularity and subscriber base continued to grow and cable companies saw that they could make even more money by running advertising on even the cable-only channels. The movie channels even began to run commercials between programs.

Flash forward to current day. It is fairly rare to find a home in the United States that does not have cable. Cable viewers have more viewing choices than ever before. Channels that began as commercial-free informational channels, such as the Weather Channel and Cable News Network (CNN) have also begun to run commercials. In essence the cable subscribers of today are expected to pay to watch commercials. The next time you pay your cable bill, just think of all the quality advertising that you would be missing out on if it were not for cable television.