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First cable TV system in North America/ the world?

B

BMR

I'm watching an old promotional film for British Relay, which was undoubtedly the first cable TV system in the UK. However it goes on to claim it was the first in the world, which I find hard to believe.

To spare you watching this rather twee and syrupy affair, they claim 1951 as a start date. Was there anything in America before that?

If you aren't put off by tweeness https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ltI09lTuGjk&t=150s
 
installLSC said:
While we're on the subject, why didn't cable take off in the UK the way it did in the US or Canada?
Click to expand...

While I have no facts to reference, I believe the difference is that the UK did not have independent TV until much later. The BBC, as a government, tax supported entity was responsible for providing TV to the entire population.

Any extension of coverage by relays or other methods was, apparently, the exclusive right and purview of the BBC and the British government.

Independent TV did not arrive for several more decades; TV in the US began as a development of private enterprise and government participation, such as different varieties of public TV, did not start until later.
 
The UK only had BBC1/2/ITV until 1982. Channel 4 went on in 1982, and cable TV didn't come into play until the later '80s. Sky Channel didn't go on until the mid '80s.
 
installLSC said:
While we're on the subject, why didn't cable take off in the UK the way it did in the US or Canada?
Click to expand...

I was worried someone might expect me to know that, and I'm really not sure. :D

I think it was largely a case that the government regulators gave us the worst of both worlds.

They neither allowed the cable operators the commercial freedom to succeed as in the U.S. nor did they take the view that television was an essential public service like electricity or the telephone and set up a nationalised cable company similar to British Telecom or British Gas.

In places like the Netherlands and Belgium the latter approach was taken and they had a much higher cable take up than we ever did. In fact part of Belgium has already switched off OTA altogether.

By the time the UK cable operators got commercial freedom, satellite TV was already well established and digital TV was promising much improved choice OTA

This is all just my two pence worth though.
 
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