I may be remembering that wrong, as it was before my time, but I had heard that people moved to cable for the same reasons that people moved from cable to streaming services. You bought one cable package, it gave you access to everything, and there were no ads. Then came the ads, and eventually, the packages you have to buy in addition to your cable subscription for the channels you actually care about.
People went to cable because it had no ads and let you have the opportunity to watch stuff you’d missed because they looped content regularly. Missed an episode of the Simpsons? All good, it’s on again in 12 hours. It also has movies and shows long before free to air because they paid for it. Cable was the start of subscriptions and paying for individual channels.
I may be remembering that wrong, as it was before my time, but I had heard that people moved to cable for the same reasons that people moved from cable to streaming services. You bought one cable package, it gave you access to everything, and there were no ads. Then came the ads, and eventually, the packages you have to buy in addition to your cable subscription for the channels you actually care about.
People went to cable because it had no ads and let you have the opportunity to watch stuff you’d missed because they looped content regularly. Missed an episode of the Simpsons? All good, it’s on again in 12 hours. It also has movies and shows long before free to air because they paid for it. Cable was the start of subscriptions and paying for individual channels.
Cable most definitely had ads though. Special add ons like HBO or Showtime didn’t but basic cable did.