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The advent of cable TV arose out of the need for the telecommunication companies of the 20th century to enhance the poor reception of over-the-air television signals for its customers who lived in mountainous or other geographically remote areas.

In response, "community antennas" were put in place at the tops of mountains or other high points to enable homes within the aforementioned mountainous and geographically remote areas to receive a cable TV reception. The first states within the United States to receive these "community antennas" -- erected in 1948 -- were Arkansas, Oregon and Pennsylvania.

4 years later, 70 "community antennas" were in place, serving approximately 14,000 cable TV subscribers nationwide a far superior television reception than ever previously experienced.

It was not much later than the operators of these "community antennas" caught on to the fact that they had the ability to intercept signals that were being broadcasted hundreds upon hundreds of miles away. Due to their ability to access these signals, the operators of the "community antennas" stood at the forefront of a paradigmatic shift with regards to the scope of what cable TV could provide to its subscribers. Rather than the "community antennas" only offering local broadcasts, the "community antenna" capitalized on their ability to intercept distant signals from other "community antennas" and began offering other programming choices.

By 1962, the number of "community antennas" had grown exponentially to almost 800. And, with the growth of "community antennas" came a growth in cable TV subscribers. Rather than the 14,000 subscribers like that of 1952, 1962 saw a 5,971% increase in subscribers, totaling approximately 850,000. Due to the growth of cable TV across the nation, and headed by early entrepreneurs in the cable TV industry -- namely Bill Daniels, Martin Malarkey and Jack Kent Cooke -- big-name corporations like Cox, TelePrompTer and Westinghouse began to invest in to the businesses that operated the prior mentioned "community antennas."

As the cable TV industry began to boom, local television stations began to take up arms with those "community antenna" operators that were intercepting distant signals and offering the programs that those signals offered to their subscribers. To the local television stations, these operators were viewed as competition. Soon enough, the outcry coming from the local television stations were so loud that the Federal Communications Commission implemented a way to quell the complaints of the local television stations. They did this by expanding their jurisdiction in order to place restrictions on the operators of the "community antennas" from intercepting distant television signals and offering it to their subscribers.

As a result of the jurisdictive expansion of the Federal Communications Commission, the exponential growth that the cable TV industry was seeing prior to their involvement came to a grinding halt and it stayed that way until the early 1970s.

It wasn't until 1972 that steps were taken to eliminate the stifling regulations set down by the Federal Communications Commission. 1972 marked the year that lobbyists for businesses within the cable TV industry began to apply pressure on the Federal Communications Commission to deregulate their previous restrictive -- some say blatantly oppressive -- regulations. 

As soon as the Federal Communications Commission had been persuaded to deregulate the cabel TV industry, collective efforts within the industry headed at the federal, state and local levels began to increasingly eliminate the few restrictions that had been left in place by the Federal Communications Commission even in the wake of the pressured deregulation.

Due to this fact, the money for cable TV growth and expansion -- that had all but dried up by the early 1970s -- began pouring in, and coupled with the disruptive development of satellite communications technology by those within the cable TV industry paved the way to a new wave of growth and the ability of cable TV companies to provide their services to their subscribers in an unparalleled and swift fashion.

In this same period of time, Charles Dolan and Gerald Levin -- co-owners of Sterling Manhattan cable -- developed the first ever cable TV package that subscribers had to pay for to gain access to. This package was the Home Box Office, known best as HBO. As Dolan and Levin's package took off and spread like wildfire, the creation of a national satellite distribution system came about. With the advent of this distribution system, cable TV programs exploded at an unprecedented rate.

As a result, by the late 1970s, almost 16 million households were cable TV subscribers. That meant that in only 3 decades since the inception of cable TV in the 1940s, the cable TV industry went experienced a whopping 114,186% in subscribers.

Fast forward to the new millennium: Cable TV providers are no longer fighting with the Federal Communications Commission over distant cable interception. The struggle they faced now was finding ways to accelerate the proliferation of advanced services over broadband cable TV networks; services like video on demand, subscription video on demand, and interactive TV all through broadband cable. However, the struggle was not in the ability to provide these types of services, but in finding a way to minimize how much such services would require to be offered properly, as the costs of upgrading the equipment for subscribers of various cable TV companies were substantial. And, with the rise in cost of the equipment upgrades, came a need for the development of new business models that incorporated the expansive and expensive qualities of their endeavors.

It wasn't until 2001 that these obstacles were overcome, and heading the solution to the problems was none other than AT&T who merged with the Comcast Corporation to create the largest ever cable TV operator in the world, with subscribers in excess of 22 million.

Almost immediately after the AT&T and Comcast Corporation merger, the expansion and subsequent need for broadband cable blew up. 2 years after the merger, the transition to digital TV from cable TV made a huge leap. As a result, huge profits were made in the industry through the deployment of services such as High-Definition television -- or, HDTV --, Video-on-Demand -- or, VOD --, digital cable and many more advanced services.

Today, cable TV and digital TV providers like prior mentioned AT&T, as well as Verizon and Qwest, are seeing ample evidence of the growth potential of cable TV's new position as a digital TV provider. As of January 2011, the cable and digital TV industry are seeing capital expenditures reaching $100 billion, brandishing a colossal 51.9 million subscribers across TV, telephone and Internet mediums.