NationSquid | The Lost Art of Cable Television

It seems that broadcast television has definitely seen better days. According to a study from the website nScreenMedia, US households with cable, satellite, or telco TV went from 100 million in 2014 down to 60 million in 2023. That’s a 40% drop, and the lowest its been since the 1980s.

I mean, this is no surprise because of streaming; the privilege of being able to choose what you want, whenever you want, without any ads, and at a much more affordable price. A whole new movement known as “cord cutting” is now on the rise.

There’s no denouncing the incredible convenience and flexibility of on-demand content, but it does lack that very unique autonomy that its predecessors had, that feeling of just turning on the TV, flipping through the channels, not having to give it any thought, especially after a long day of work or school, and then just eventually discovering something.

And with that, comes that feeling of togetherness, watching a live broadcast with thousands of other people, something that, by the nature of how Cable TV is designed, has yet to be replicated. And now, we are seeing the aftereffects of that. So how did Cable TV, as an artform, start? What went wrong? And how do we go back?

This is a deep-dive into the history of network and cable television in the United States and the shape it has had on the entertainment media of today.