How much was your cable bill back in the day?

[gregg75]

I remember my grandmother paid $10 a month for about 5 channels in Eastern KY in the mid 70's. Only 1 station was available over the air for free from Hazard. I think Hazard also has a Kentucky PBS repeater station or whatever these days.

She was so rural that the man who owned the cable line came by each month to collect his fee.

 

[skipeastport]

We lived in rural northeast Mississippi. In 1973 our cable bill was $7.25. We had the following lineup:

Channel 3: WREC-TV (CBS, Memphis, TN)
Channel 4: WOWL-TV (NBC, Florence, AL)
Channel 5: WMC-TV (NBC, Memphis, TN)
Channel 6: WHNT-TV (CBS, Huntsville, AL)
Channel 7: WBBJ-TV (ABC, Jackson, TN)
Channel 9: WTWV-TV (NBC, Tupelo, MS)
Channel 10: WKNO-TV (PBS, Memphis, TN)
Channel 13: WHBQ-TV (ABC, Memphis, TN)

In 1980 the cable company had added WTBS, WGN, and CNN. We paid $8.40 a month that year.

 

[thomwim]

As a 90s kid, we paid $25 a month. For channels 2-69.

 

[willdav713]

1989, San Antonio's Paragon Cable

$11.05 per month Channels 2-11; 13; 15; 17; 19,20,21,22
Superstation Pack $2.35 TBS 12 WGN 18, I think at one time you could choose just TBS or just WGN. But to add them while you had existing service required a Trip Charge of $40 so the cable guy could remove the traps.
Around $22 for the Expanded Cable 23-37;39,40;43-44
Could get HBO 14 and Showtime 16 without the cable box.
All other premiums required a Zenith Z-TAC cable box at $3.05 per box.
You could get a non addressable converter (for use with those older VCR's that didn't have automatic tuning) for $2.00 per month
Then you had the Additional Outlet Fee (if you didn't add the additional outlets yourself) of $2.00 per month. Eliminated in 1992.
That Additional Outlet Fee didn't make any sense because you could go to Radio Shack and buy a splitter and coax cable and run your own outlets, and Paragon couldn't notice the difference.

Houston's Warner Cable never charged that fee. But in Houston you had to have TBS and WGN those weren't optional and HBO and Showtime you had to have the Pioneer box for.

 

[rwells2265]

We lived in rural northeast Mississippi. In 1973 our cable bill was $7.25. We had the following lineup:

Channel 3: WREC-TV (CBS, Memphis, TN)
Channel 4: WOWL-TV (NBC, Florence, AL)
Channel 5: WMC-TV (NBC, Memphis, TN)
Channel 6: WHNT-TV (CBS, Huntsville, AL)
Channel 7: WBBJ-TV (ABC, Jackson, TN)
Channel 9: WTWV-TV (NBC, Tupelo, MS)
Channel 10: WKNO-TV (PBS, Memphis, TN)
Channel 13: WHBQ-TV (ABC, Memphis, TN)

In 1980 the cable company had added WTBS, WGN, and CNN. We paid $8.40 a month that year.

Whereabouts in NE Miss.? Would almost have to be in Tishomingo County, as Corinth would've been a little far west for WHNT. I can only guess that 12 would've been slotted for WMAE/Booneville (Miss. ETV) when it powered up in '74.

We were in Tupelo in the 1972-78 time frame. I was too young to have asked how much the cable bill was, but I remember the channel lineup. I know I've posted it elsewhere on this board, but here it is again:

2 = WKNO 10 (PBS, Memphis)
3 = WREC/WREG 3 (CBS, Memphis)
4 = WHBQ 13 (ABC, Memphis)
5 = WMC 5 (NBC, Memphis) ... went to gray screen when programming duplicated WTWV 9
6 = WTWV/WTVA 9 (NBC, Tupelo)
7 = WCBI 4 (CBS, Columbus) ... usually snowy
8 = blank
9 = blank
10 = automated weather (camera panning gauges), WELO-FM 98.5 audio (B/EZ)
11 = blank
12 = WMAE 12 (PBS, Booneville, 1974-onward)
13 = blank

No second ABC as "preemption backup", at least until WCBI flipped to ABC (1977-79).

Would have loved a signal from Alabama .... sometimes I could see traces of WOWL 15 with a plain loop UHF antenna.

--Russell

 

[landtuna]

Not cable, but satellite (C band) - $60 per YEAR for what passes today for 2nd tier programming (including ESPN although I seldom watched it).

 

[radiorob2.0]

I remember my grandmother paid $10 a month for about 5 channels in Eastern KY in the mid 70's. Only 1 station was available over the air for free from Hazard. I think Hazard also has a Kentucky PBS repeater station or whatever these days.

She was so rural that the man who owned the cable line came by each month to collect his fee.

The over the air station was WKYH, now WYMT Hazard. Channel 57 at the time had an ERP of 214,000 watts. Since the mountains were so thick the signal wasn't viewable much beyond Hazard unless reception was atop a mountain.

Speaking of cable, each county in that part of the state had several cable systems with a handful of customers. Those operators at the time didn't want to mess with UHF so the Lexington signals were usually ignored. Instead they imported Tri-cities Tennessee, Knoxville and Huntington/Charleston.

About one county over in Letcher County a guy who owned a radio shop decided to sell TV's so he began a cable system in 1952. Their line up through the seventies and the early eighties:

2) Usually WHTN later WOWK Huntington (ABC) or sometimes WLOS Asheville (ABC) or WKPT Kingsport (ABC)
3) PBS from either WSJK Sneedville, TN or WKHA Hazard (KET). When both were off the air or for a Reds game they aired WSAZ Huntington (NBC)
4) WJHL Johnson City, TN or WBIR Knoxville both CBS
5) WKYH Hazard (NBC)
6) WHIS later WVVA Bluefield WV (NBC) or WCYB Bristol (NBC) or WATE Knoxville (NBC later ABC)

The service was less than ten dollars a month.

 

[skipeastport]

Whereabouts in NE Miss.? Would almost have to be in Tishomingo County, as Corinth would've been a little far west for WHNT. --Russell

Good guess, Russell! You're right, I did live in Tishomingo County, and it was cool to have two of every network, from three different states no less.