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Show 6 planned. For one thing, many small outfits could not afford to purchase small-format equipment. And, there were numberous problems that didn't seem to have solutions. solu-tions. For instance, could there be pornography on a cable channel? The major argument argu-ment against pornography on a network channel is that it might be seen by children when switching the dial. Also, since there ar.j mil three channels, networks feel they have to appeal to the widest possible range of viewers at all times. Porno- j graphy, networks executives , believe, appeals to a small i segment of the population 1 and it would offend too many j other viewers. i But there were more ser- S ious problems to come. Cable stations face a major i battle with networks, who see i cable as a threat because of cable's probable ability to take sports events away ( from them. Meanwhile, cable is doing very poorly in most large cities. More on this i next week. Note: Cable will reach Park City in the near future. So that citizens better understand this technological advance, THE RECORD is running run-ning a series on cable. By Linda Berman You may not believe this, but several years ago cable experts were predicting the end of television as we know it. Cable, the transmission of the TV picture via a cable, would replace the present system of over-the-air transmission. , Rather than having three or four major stations in an area, there would be hundredseven hund-redseven thousands. Everybody would have access ac-cess to television housewives, house-wives, school teachers, blue collar workers, students-anyone students-anyone who wanted to get on the tube would be able to. This was several years ago. Today the wired nation that Ralph Lee Smith, communications com-munications profession at Howard University, predicted predict-ed has simply not come to pass. Cable has failed dis-' dis-' mally in many large cities-Boston cities-Boston recently decided not to allow cable into the area at all. Why has this happened? Why hasn't cable delivered its promises? The answers are complex, but let's start with an explanation of cable. The TV shows you now see on ABC, NBC and CBS are transmitted through the air. Each station in a city is allotted a certain frequency to transmit programs. There are very few usable frequencies frequen-cies in any area, however, and the maximum is usually three. That's why there are three major networks. Cable does not operate through the air. It's often compared to the telephone. Pictures in a cable system are transmitted through a TV cable, much like telephone tele-phone calls are transmitted via telephone wires. And, there are thousands of cable channels, just as there are thousands of telephone numbers. num-bers. But, just as you pay for a telephone hook-up and additional charges, so it is with cable. In some systems you pay just for the hookup. hook-up. In others, called pay cable systems, you pay for each show you watch. Cable originated in rural communities in the 1950's. Reception was poor, and it was found that if you transmitted trans-mitted shows on a cable, the picture quality improved considerably. Small 'Mom and Pop" cable outlets sprang up in rural areas throughout the country. For a small installation instal-lation fee they'd transmit network shows into your home through the cable. No one realized the potential poten-tial of cable until the early 1960's. About that time, disenchanted dis-enchanted TV workers and communications professors who never liked network television anyhow realized that cable provided literally thousands of channels. Public Pub-lic access, or TV for and by the people, could finally become be-come a reality. They envisioned cable programs on medicine, health care, education, travel, trav-el, news, public services, politics, hobbies like gardening, gar-dening, arts and crafts, home repair in just about any area you could think of. They knew there would be problems, prob-lems, but they figured these could be worked out eventually. event-ually. They were also excited because be-cause of the advent of small format equipment. Small format equipment is handheld hand-held or portable TV equipment equip-ment that sells for $1200 and up. With small format equipment, equip-ment, anyone with a little training can produce, direct, and star in his or her own show. Cable visionaries wanted to see small format equipment equip-ment available to people at cable outlets. People could come to these centers, get some basic instruction, and produce their own show. Things just didn't go as |