Last non-rural areas to get cable

[nomadcowatbk]

Parts of NYC weren't wired for cable until the early 90s

 

[ssetta]

Princeton, MA. It's somewhat rural, but not completely. It's a small town just north of Worcester, mainly known from Wachusett Mountain Ski Area. I know that up until recently, they still did not have cable. Though that might have changed in the last 5 years or so.

 

[davect]

Princeton, MA. It's somewhat rural, but not completely. It's a small town just north of Worcester, mainly known from Wachusett Mountain Ski Area. I know that up until recently, they still did not have cable. Though that might have changed in the last 5 years or so.

Really?!? I thought it was amazing when Ashburnham (not far from Princeton) got cable as "late" as the early 1990's!

 

[Poledo]

I remember Bell South (Now AT&T obviously) testing out what I believe was IPTV in several smaller north-east Georgia towns that still didn't have cable back in the mid 1990's. This was desirable because the mountains made OTA reception difficult and even if you could get line of site for satellite, they didn't provide locals back then... and no one in North Georgia wanted to watch networks from New York City. I don't know enough about it to provide more details... Am I jogging anyone's memory?

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

The core of Cleveland wasn't hired until somewhere in the mid-1980s, when North Coast Cable started up.

North Coast Cable eventually became Cablevision, then Adelphia, and Cleveland is now part of TWC's massive Northeast Ohio system.

The system covers some previously non-cabled suburbs...Cablevision eventually expanded out as far as the OMW World Headquarters. Other suburbs were wired earlier, by what eventually became Cox Cable (still operating) and Comcast (swallowed locally into TWC with the Adelphia merger).

Akron had TWC's predecessor, Akron Cablevision, going back to I believe the 1960s!

 

[MattParker]

Parts of NYC weren't wired for cable until the early 90s

I remember it well. The city approved cable franchises for Brooklyn in 1981 but it took more than a decade to get the city of homes and churches wired for cable. Part of the problem was the city forced the cable companies to wire the worst neighborhoods first - neighborhoods where people don't have a lot of money for cable, let alone premium channels. And where vandalism and theft of service are constant problems. The cable companies didn't/wouldn't move fast because they didn't have money coming into to cover their costs of wiring. But some politicians got PC points and that's all that matters.

 

[Rollo-Smokes]

Parts of NYC weren't wired for cable until the early 90s

I remember it well. The city approved cable franchises for Brooklyn in 1981 but it took more than a decade to get the city of homes and churches wired for cable. Part of the problem was the city forced the cable companies to wire the worst neighborhoods first - neighborhoods where people don't have a lot of money for cable, let alone premium channels. And where vandalism and theft of service are constant problems. The cable companies didn't/wouldn't move fast because they didn't have money coming into to cover their costs of wiring. But some politicians got PC points and that's all that matters.

I can add to that. In the Bronx the only area wired for cable in the early 1990s was the Co-op City complex, which had its own system (and, possibly, the uber-wealthy Riverdale section). Thanks to the politicians and the franchisees, the rest of the borough finally got served in 1994.

We got stuck with Cablevision, which has its Bronx hub a quarter-mile away from where I grew up in Soundview. Shocking as it is to admit, but they weren't so bad back then.

 

[Tri-State Media]

The core of Cleveland wasn't hired until somewhere in the mid-1980s, when North Coast Cable started up.

North Coast Cable eventually became Cablevision, then Adelphia, and Cleveland is now part of TWC's massive Northeast Ohio system.

The system covers some previously non-cabled suburbs...Cablevision eventually expanded out as far as the OMW World Headquarters. Other suburbs were wired earlier, by what eventually became Cox Cable (still operating) and Comcast (swallowed locally into TWC with the Adelphia merger).

Akron had TWC's predecessor, Akron Cablevision, going back to I believe the 1960s!

I've mentioned this in another thread today, but in 1986 parts of Hamilton County, OH didn't have cable. I know where I lived we didn't - so we still had to use an antenna.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

I see the various examples in this thread, but until North Coast Cable started up (1986, I think), the entire city of Cleveland itself had cable NOWHERE, not just in sections.

I believe the suburbs that eventually became Cablevision territory were in the same boat - mostly inner ring suburbs.

 

[charlestondxman]

Charleston, SC got cable rather early for a larger metro. Many of the suburban areas got it in the mid 1970s (1975-77), as penetration eventually reached the city last by the early 80s.

Rural areas were some of the last to get it. St. Stephen, Bonneau and other areas didn't get it until 1988. Lincolnville, a town closer to Charleston, didn't get it till '87.