• @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    468 months ago

    Yes, but no. Cable didn’t used to let you watch all seasons of a specific show on any given day and time of your choosing.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      34
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      I’m old enough to remember when cable didn’t have ads. I was really young, maybe 5ish, but even then it was confusing to me when they started adding commercials. That was for bad TV with the antenna. Then it was only HBO that didn’t have ads, but we couldn’t afford that until I was much older.

      EDIT: I guess my memories of being 5 years old aren’t very accurate.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        228 months ago

        Basic cable has always had commercials along with the over the air channels. Premium channels didn’t.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          148 months ago

          Yep, cable was first used to allow people to watch the same channels that were available over the air just from a more locations than what was available via antenna at their home (and with better reception), so it had the same commercials.

          Premium channels were commercial-less for 7 or 9 years (can’t remember exactly) before the first premium channel decided to start running adverts.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            38 months ago

            There also used to be product placement ads during the shows too. I feel like that’s also more insidious when Jed Clampett and Granny are telling you every episode to smoke a Winston and eat Kellogg’s.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          28 months ago

          You’re right. I guess I was remembering premium channels and some niche channels that were cable-only. Most channels available on early cable were just piping non-local broadcast channels down a cable.

      • SeaJ
        link
        fedilink
        English
        28 months ago

        If you got it over antenna, it most definitely was not cable.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          28 months ago

          I didn’t say I got it over antenna. I said TV with commercials was for TV that came from the antenna.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      118 months ago

      Until the show you want to watch gets removed because they don’t want to pay the licensing fee for it anymore.

      The original content is often very mid.

    • snownyte
      link
      fedilink
      28 months ago

      Pretty much.

      If you missed an episode of a show on cable television. Well, you’re shit out of luck unless it’s a show that the network didn’t mind running re-runs of, but re-runs only applied for shows that were popular. And if you missed an episode of a show that wasn’t popular, again you were shit out of luck and hope to one day acquire it through a VHS or a DVD or these days, blu-ray or on streaming.

      Network programming was always like this.