I remember seeing those ads … you can't say they did not warn us.
WarpedRecord
15 years ago
Why exactly was pay TV considered such a threat — other than the fact that it provided alternatives to the big networks' Â domination?
NiNi
15 years ago
@WarpedRecord: That's exactly it! The big networks feared losing their captive audience, and moreover, the ones with money to spend. All that lost advertising revenue! D:
The Youtube comments (always a bastion of intelligence and reason!) are chock-full of people erroneously drawing parallels to the mandatory digital TV conversion, and I find that amusing.
WarpedRecord
15 years ago
Thanks for the reply NiNi!Â
Ah yes, YouTube comments. Whenever I think there's hope for humanity, all I do is check those to remind me what a sorry state we're in.
bluerosekiller
15 years ago
I vaguely recall those ads & the "pay TV" scare from back when I was little as well.
I can distinctly recall overhearing my parents being involved in a quite animated discussion with my grandparents about it once or twice.
Of course, back then, I had no clue what cable television even was! And as far as "pay tv" was concerned, all I could envision was someone from the government coming into our house & hooking up some sort of a coin op thingy to our tv! LOL
All things considered though, given the way that technology has progressed so rapidly since those days, I think it's rather surprising that regular, over the air television stations & commercial networks are still with us & thriving here in 2009.
DarthPariah
15 years ago
Ha, ha! I don't remember this spot, but I remember when we first got pay cable back in the mid-'70s. $9.00 a month, and all you got was a few extra channels, and, if I remember, a B/W channel that did nothing but constantly pan a camera across a panel that had analogue steam-gauge readings of time, temperature, wind speed, wind direction, etc. Even then, the signal from cable was so bad sometimes that my dad got disgusted with it and would switch back to over-the-air for local stations.
ScrewedUpTeen
7 years ago
Does anyone else think the thing in the thumbnail of the video looks like the talking drop of hot sauce from that episode of SpongeBob? (I did a Traumafession on it once before.)
I remember seeing those ads … you can't say they did not warn us.
Why exactly was pay TV considered such a threat — other than the fact that it provided alternatives to the big networks' Â domination?
@WarpedRecord: That's exactly it! The big networks feared losing their captive audience, and moreover, the ones with money to spend. All that lost advertising revenue! D:
The Youtube comments (always a bastion of intelligence and reason!) are chock-full of people erroneously drawing parallels to the mandatory digital TV conversion, and I find that amusing.
Thanks for the reply NiNi!Â
Ah yes, YouTube comments. Whenever I think there's hope for humanity, all I do is check those to remind me what a sorry state we're in.
I vaguely recall those ads & the "pay TV" scare from back when I was little as well.
I can distinctly recall overhearing my parents being involved in a quite animated discussion with my grandparents about it once or twice.
Of course, back then, I had no clue what cable television even was! And as far as "pay tv" was concerned, all I could envision was someone from the government coming into our house & hooking up some sort of a coin op thingy to our tv! LOL
All things considered though, given the way that technology has progressed so rapidly since those days, I think it's rather surprising that regular, over the air television stations & commercial networks are still with us & thriving here in 2009.
Ha, ha! I don't remember this spot, but I remember when we first got pay cable back in the mid-'70s. $9.00 a month, and all you got was a few extra channels, and, if I remember, a B/W channel that did nothing but constantly pan a camera across a panel that had analogue steam-gauge readings of time, temperature, wind speed, wind direction, etc. Even then, the signal from cable was so bad sometimes that my dad got disgusted with it and would switch back to over-the-air for local stations.
Does anyone else think the thing in the thumbnail of the video looks like the talking drop of hot sauce from that episode of SpongeBob? (I did a Traumafession on it once before.)