By
Peter J. Dirr, Ph.D.
September 1999
The Cable Industry's Commitment To Education
The cover of a brochure reads, "Few People Know There Is An American Industry That Has, Over The Past Ten Years Donated More Than $2 Million A Week To America's Schools." Distributed widely in the Washington, DC area and across the U.S., the brochure goes on to explain that the cable television industry in the United States is providing a wide range of educational resources and services to elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, and learners of all ages. (Cable in the Classroom, 1999)
The cable industry's commitment to education was formalized in 1989 with the establishment of Cable in the Classroom, a non-profit company funded entirely by the cable industry to provide educational resources and services to elementary and secondary schools in the United States. The industry's commitment to education, through Cable in the Classroom, is founded on several philosophical and pedagogical underpinnings, including: free access to cable offerings, free use of quality educational programming, absence of restrictions on how teachers can use the programs (exclusive of some limits on the length of use as required by copyright clearances), ability to integrate video, text, and data resources, professional development to help teachers use the resources effectively, and encouraging responsible use of the resources. Through Cable in the Classroom, teachers (and, subsequently, students) have free access to cable television service, free educational television programming, local support from educational staff, free Internet access, unrestricted use of programs, integrated learning resources, professional development opportunities, and other educational services.
Free access to cable services
Each cable company that is part of Cable in the Classroom (that includes most of the multiple system operators – MSOs -- for a total of more than 8,500 local cable systems) has pledged to contact every accredited elementary and secondary school in its coverage area and offer to install and maintain basic cable television service to the school. This on-going service (not a trial period) has been accepted by 78% of all American schools so that at the end of 1999 more than 80,000 schools were receiving free basic cable service, benefiting a potential 43 million K-12 students each year.
Free educational television programming
Each month, some 42 cable programming networks (such as CNN, Discovery, and The History Channel) provide more than 525 hours of educational programming for learners at all ages. All the programs are commercial-free. Some are created specifically for classroom use; others are reformatted from documentaries or other programs that appear in the network's regular schedule. The programs are usually broadcast outside of school hours with the intention that a teacher, parent, or school staff person will record the program for later use by a teacher and learners. All programs are copyright-cleared for at least a year, so schools are encouraged to build their own video libraries for use by teachers throughout the year. Over a period of ten years, the cable industry has provided more than 60,000 hours of educational programming to the schools, not to mention additional programming that has been used by countless adults for their own learning. (More will be said about programming resources in the next section.)
Local educational support
Most of the 8,500 local cable systems that are members of Cable in the Classroom have at least one staff person who serves as Education Coordinator for the system. That person is in regular contact with schools, alerting teachers to upcoming programming, distributing Cable in the Classroom Magazines to the schools, often giving workshops for teachers or bringing in others to give workshops, and generally serving as the educational spokesperson and trouble-shooter for the system.
Free Internet access
As the Internet became a popular information resource in the second half of the 1990s, and as cable companies started to consider using their infrastructure to provide Internet access as well as cable television programming, the industry expanded its commitment to education by pledging to give each public school passed by the system a free cable modem as the system was upgraded and Internet access was offered to the public. This High Speed Access project reached some 4,000 schools by the end of 1999.
No restrictions on use
Research showed that teachers would use video resources if they could access them with no strings attached. Unlike television programming offered to the schools from other sources, the Cable in the Classroom programs are totally under the teacher's control. Teachers can replay the programs whenever they wish, use them in their entirety or in parts, use them with an entire class or a single student. Typically, teachers use short segments of a program, often pausing the video to ask questions of their students, thus using television in a highly interactive and engaging way.
Integrated learning resources
Besides providing educational television programs, the programming networks also provide vast educational resources through the World Wide Web, many of which relate directly to the broadcast programs. The immediacy of the Web allows the program providers to offer teachers and learners lesson plans, up-to-the-minute information, additional resources, and new ways to learn. Many of the resources are correlated to national and/or state academic standards. The monthly Cable in the Classroom Magazine (with a circulation of over 105,000 copies per month) functions as a guide for educational programming. It lists the programs for the month by subject area, offers suggestions for integrating the programs into the curriculum, points to related Web sites, and allows teachers to share their success stories with one another.
Professional development opportunities
Since its inception, Cable in the Classroom has been training teachers on how to integrate educational cable programming into the curriculum. The organization has regularly trained about 7,500 teachers per year in workshops that demonstrate strategies for teaching with technology. Following a Cable in the Classroom study (Dirr, 1997) that examined how elementary and secondary school teachers in the U.S. were using the World Wide Web in their teaching, Cable in the Classroom formed the Professional Development Institute to help teachers access educational resources available on the Web and integrate those resources into their classes. The training goal was raised from 7,500 per year to 50,000 teachers per year, and a series of hands-on and virtual workshops was developed to demonstrate and encourage effective and efficient uses of the educational resources available from the cable industry. The workshops emphasize the strengths of using a variety of resources to address the multimodal learning styles of today's learners. They also relate the available resources to the new academic standards that are being adopted by schools around the country.
Other educational services
Over the years, the cable industry has joined with other educational organizations to provide additional resources to the nation's schools. Since 1994, the industry and the National PTA have developed and offered the Family and Community Critical Viewing Project. Aimed primarily at parents, the Project teaches techniques for setting rules for television viewing. Even parents who are unable to attend a workshop can request a free video and workbook, 125,000 of which had been distributed by the end of 1999. The cable industry also joined with TechCorps (a national organization that provides technical assistance to schools) to create a comprehensive, on-line, self-paced Internet training tool called webTeacher that is accessible to teachers anytime, anyplace (www.webteacher.org). Using webTeacher, a teacher can become a proficient user of the Internet/World Wide Web for searching, e-mail, Web Page development, video conferencing, and distance education. In yet other joint projects, Cable in the Classroom teamed up with Home Box Office to create "30 By 30:Kid Flicks", a program to help youngsters understand, apply, and critically review film production techniques, and with Court TV and the National Middle Schools Association to create "Opening The Door To Diversity," a project to help youngsters tolerate and appreciate diversity in today's society.
The creation of Cable in the Classroom coincided with a growing interest in education circles in the Constructivist approach to education. It was a happy coincidence, for, as the Constructivists were promoting student-centered, active, project-oriented learning, Cable in the Classroom was offering resources from cable programming networks that would support exactly that form of pedagogy. Teachers were shown how entire programs, or clips from the programs, could be used to support learning by individual students or groups of students. When program networks introduced lesson plans and support materials on their Web sites in the mid 1990s, teachers learned that they could use the additional resources to tailor their instruction to fit the varied needs and learning styles of the students in their classes.
Resources for Early Childhood and Primary Grades
Family Channel - "The All New Captain Kangaroo" features readings from popular children's books, animal segments, and other activities for fun and learning. The Family Channel Web site (www.foxfamilychannel.com) has parenting tips as well as suggestions for ways to use TV and the Web to talk to children about issues of interest to them.
Noggin – A new cable channel that combines a variety of programming from Nickelodeon and the Children's Television Network, Noggin aids the development of pre-school children with programming such as: "Allegra's Window" (problem solving and listening skills), "Blue's Clues" (thinking, reasoning, and social skills), "Eureeka's Castle" (competition, sharing, and problem solving), "Gullah Gullah Island" (cultures and community), and "Sesame Street." Noggin has other series for the primary school grades, such as: "Square One TV" (math concepts and problem-solving), "3-2-1 Contact" (science and technology), "Wild Side" (animal life), "Ghostwriter" (reasoning and writing), and "The Electric Company" (reading). The Noggin Web site (www.noggin.com) provides parents with some post-viewing activities and links to the CTW and Nickelodeon home pages for more materials.
Cartoon Network - Co-produced with the Children's Television Workshop, the Cartoon Network's "Big Bag" uses Muppet characters to encourage pre-schoolers to solve problems creatively while learning to cooperate.
Nickelodeon – broadcasts a wide variety of educational programming for pre-school and primary grades. "Blues Clues" (thinking, reasoning, and social skills) and "Gullah Gullah Island" (culture and community) are appropriate for pre-school and primary grade children. The Nickelodeon educational Web site (www.teachers.nick.com) provides extensive descriptions of learning activities that can be used in conjunction with the viewing of the programs.
Resources for Middle Grades and Junior High School
Nickelodeon -- Series such as "Launch Box" (the history and science of space exploration), "Mr. Wizard's World" (scientific principles and experiments), and "Charlie Brown Specials" (key moments in history) are accompanied by extensive lesson plans on the Nickelodeon Web site.
Disney Channel -- "Amazing Animals" combines live action and animation to show characteristics of various animals. "Going Wild With Jeff Corwin" is a nature series showing animals in their native habitats. In the Education section of the Disney Web site (www.disneychannel.com) , teachers and parents find activities to accompany the TV programs as well as chat rooms and other child-rearing aids.
Court TV – With the National Middle School Association, Court TV has developed "Choices and Consequences," a video series and support materials (www.courttv.com/choices) to help young adolescents understand the consequences of some of the decisions they make by the actions they take.
Resources for Adolescents, High School, and Adults
CNN – CNN's daily half-hour "Newsroom" program summarizes top news stories. Through a daily posting on the Web (learning.turner.com/ newsroom/index.html) learners of all ages can find additional information on each story as well as links to other sites for primary information sources on the topics. CNN also airs weekly news summaries, "Science & Technology Week," "CNN World Report" and "Moneyweek," as well as special programs such as the ten-part series, "Millennium: A Thousand Years Of History." Appropriate for advanced middle grade students, high school students, and interested adults.
Ovation – This relatively young cable channel provides visual and performing arts and humanities programming for the junior and senior high school levels. Series and programs such as "Access All Areas" (examining the making of music), "Rings of Passion: Five Emotions In The World Of Art," "Top Score" (behind the scenes of an opera production), and "The Immortal Emperor" are accompanied by teacher guide materials and class handouts at the Ovation Web site (www.ovationtv. com). Many of the programs are equally appropriate for middle school students, high school students, and the informal adult learner.
C-SPAN – For twenty years, C-SPAN has been giving the American public gavel-to-gavel coverage of the proceedings of Congress. Series specially designed for classroom use include "Washington Journal" (issues and events of Capitol Hill), "American Perspectives" (cultural and historical events), "International Programs" (views of foreign governments through coverage of their legislatures, conferences, etc.), and "Prime Time Public Affairs" (public policy programming). In recent years, the network has produced carefully designed series (e.g., "American Presidents" and "Road To The White House") and has begun to air a wide variety of literature programming ("Book TV," airs all weekend on C-SPAN2). The C-SPAN Classroom provides support materials for motivated learners (www.c-span.org). This programming has great appeal to adults interested in politics, government, and literature.
ESPN – ESPN has seized the opportunity to use young people's interest in sports to teach the principles of math and science that are so important in some sports. "Sports Figures" uses well-known athletes to explain the math and science principles that are understandable and appealing to today's youth (www.sportsfigures. com), and to many adults who have long forgotten how the math and science principles underlie their favorite sports.
A&E – With its sister channel, The History Channel, Arts & Entertainment provides a wide variety of Arts programming which is supplemented with learning support materials at the Arts & Entertainment Classroom site (www.aande.com). Special programs on topics such as "The Star Spangled Banner" and "The Underground Railroad" are accompanied by in-depth study guide material. These are also attractive resources for informal adult learners.
Resources for Learners of All Ages
The Weather Channel - helps students explore weather phenomena. "Look Up" (grades K-4) encourages students to observe the sky. "The Weather Classroom" (grades 4-10), with over 200 electronic pages of experiments and instructional materials (www.weather.com/ education) teaches the hows and whys of weather . "On The Safe Side" (grades 5-12) provides teachers with resources for teaching weather preparedness. These resources are also an excellent resource for any adult wishing to learn more about how weather works and what the current predictions are for any location in the world.
Discovery - Discovery's sister station, The Learning Channel, airs a weekly series, "TLC Elementary School," designed for grades K-6. Specially edited from original Discovery documentaries, the programs provide young learners with insight to a wide variety of interesting science topics such as ants, the solar system, and the human body. Discovery organizes its daily hour-long program, "Assignment Discovery," around "theme" weeks each semester (e.g., "Ancient Egypt," "Amazing Planet"). Discovery's comprehensive lesson plan materials, available on the Web for each program in each theme week, contain objectives correlated to the appropriate national academic standards, vocabulary words that might be new to the learner (dictionary definition, use in a sentence, spoken), links to other appropriate Web sites, questions to use as advanced organizers and follow-up, and classroom activities (www.discoveryschool.com). The Learning Channel, also airs series such as "Great Books" and "Nature's Rage." Many of these programs are appropriate for middle grades, high schools, and lifelong learners.
Research On Educational Uses Of Cable And Internet Resources
Educational use of cable programming and related Internet resources presumes access to the needed technologies and motivation and preparation to use those resources. Various studies in recent years have examined those issues. It is not the intention here to provide a comprehensive review of that literature, but rather to highlight a few of the pertinent findings.
Access To The Technologies
By the mid 1990s, about three-fourths of all public school buildings in the United States had cable television hook-ups. (Blohm, 1997; Quality Education Data, 1996; U.S. Department of Education, 1995) At that same time, virtually all schools in the country were reporting that they had television sets and videocassette recorders. (Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 1997)
By the mid 1990s, just over half of all schools had Internet access, although its speed was usually limited and it did not reach into every classroom. Internet access and connection speeds grew substantially in a short period. In 1994, 35% of all public schools and 3% of their instructional rooms (i.e., classrooms, computer labs, libraries/media rooms) had access to the Internet. By 1998, those numbers had risen to 89% of all public schools and 51% of their instructional rooms. While there were some disparities by region of the country and poverty level of the schools, all schools experienced substantial improvement in that four year period. (Rowand, 1999)
An even more dramatic change took place in the type of Internet connections. In 1994, 74% of the connected schools used dial-up connections and only 39% had higher speed connections using dedicated lines. By 1998, 65% of the schools were using dedicated lines and only 22% were relying on dial-up connections. (Rowand, 1999) At the same time, the number of computers in the schools had increased to the point where there were 6 students per computer and 12 students per computer with Internet access. (Rowand, 1999; Henry, 1998)
In 1996, the cable industry, as part of the National Cable Television Association's High Speed Education Connection initiative, committed to provide high speed Internet connections to all schools passed by upgraded cable systems. The impact of this initiative is just beginning to be felt in the schools at the close of the 20th Century; approximately 4,000 schools have high speed Internet connections through their local cable companies.
Preparation To Use The Resources
Technology-related staff development is neglected by most school districts. Many studies in recent years have concluded that more attention and funding should be focused on helping staff make more effective use of instructional technologies.
Early in 1999, The Detroit News reported on a U.S. Department of Education study that found that only one in five classroom teachers feels well prepared to integrate educational technology in the grade or subject they teach. (Whitmire, 1999) The reason for this seems quite clear from other studies – no one is teaching the teachers how to use the technologies. A study conducted by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, funded by the Milken Exchange on Education, found that "Most teacher-training programs fail to show their students how to incorporate technology into their classroom instruction." That study further concluded that "… access to technology had increased faster than technology had been incorporated into teaching and learning." And still, "Most of the institutions in the survey reported that they lacked both a plan to teach their students about technology and a way to pay for such instruction." (Basinger, 1999)
It should be no surprise, then, that a report from the CEO Forum on Education and Technology (executives from several large computer companies and the nation's largest teachers' union) found that at least one third of all schools in the U.S. still lack the facilities to train future teachers to use technology effectively in the classroom. (Matthews, 1999) Nor should it be a surprise that most teachers have not linked the use of instructional technologies to the education reform efforts that are sweeping the nation. While 56% of all teachers report that they have used instructional strategies aligned with new academic standards in an effort to improve the quality of instruction, only 7% report using innovative technologies specifically to support those efforts. (Alexander et al., 1998)
In the Leader's Guide to Education Technology, Rockman et al. note an Education Week study that found that four out of ten teachers have had no formal training in how to use the Internet for instruction and an additional 18% have had no more than 7 hours of training. (Rockman et al., 1999) Yet, data from the U.S. Department of Education clearly show that the amount of training is directly related to how well-prepared teachers feel to integrate educational technology into their lessons. Only 11% of those who have no formal training feel well-prepared, compared to 17% of those who have had 1 to 8 hours of training, and 33% of those who have had more than 8 hours of training. (U.S. Department of Education, 1999)
From these and other studies, a picture emerges that many school districts are investing heavily in equipment and software but are failing to make equal investments in training their teachers to use that equipment and software. Two recent newspaper articles describe the relationship between equipment installation and teacher training in similar terms. A headline in the Washington Post describing advances in educational technology in Maryland read, "Study Finds More School Computers;" the sub-head was, "Teachers' Training Lags." (Argetsinger, 1998) Halfway across the country and a year later, the (Minnesota) Star Tribune headline read, "Schools Wired, But Training Falls Short." The sub-head went on to explain, "Report says Minnesota remains at the forefront in Internet access, but its teachers lag behind in technology instruction." (Draper, 1999)
Many teachers would welcome additional opportunities for training in effective uses of video and Internet technologies. Cable in the Classroom studies have found that two out of three teachers would welcome more opportunities for in-service workshops on technology (either hands-on or online). (Research Communications, Ltd., 1996; Crane, 1998)
Teacher Use Of Information Technologies
In spite of the fact that relatively few teachers have been trained to use educational technologies in the classroom, many seem to intuitively understand that these technologies can be a boon to learning for some students. A 1997 study by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting found that 92% of all teachers who used television in their elementary and secondary classes felt that it helped them teach more effectively, and 88% thought it enabled them be more creative; 75% attributed increased comprehension and ability to discuss ideas to their use of television; 63% reported that it increased motivation and enthusiasm for learning; 42% felt it improved student vocabulary; and, 40% noted that students prefer television over other media. (Corporation For Public Broadcasting, 1997)
By the second half of the 1990s, eighty-four percent (84%) of all teachers used video and/or television programs in their classrooms, and in schools with cable, three-fourths of all teachers used one or more Cable in the Classroom programs. (Research Communications, Ltd., 1996; Crane, 1998) In the case of cable television programs (and Internet resources alike), teachers prefer to use resources that have been designed specifically for curriculum applications. They appreciate the thinking that others have done in creating user manuals and study notes. They are less comfortable with tracking down primary source materials for which they have to do all the curriculum integration themselves.
The Cable in the Classroom studies found that the most used educational television resources were from the Public Broadcasting Service, Discovery, Cable News Network (CNN), Arts & Entertainment (A&E), C-SPAN, The Learning Channel, and the Weather Channel. About half of all teachers who use video in their classrooms used three or more cable programming services.
Teachers are not just using television as a babysitter, as some have feared; 85% related the television programs to other assignments all or most of the time. Furthermore, teachers have specific objectives in mind when they use television: 94% use it to reinforce and expand on content that is being taught; 83% to respond to a variety of learning styles; 74% to increase student motivation to learn; and, 69% to stimulate other learning activities. (Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 1997)
A 1997 Cable in the Classroom study of how teachers use the Internet/World Wide Web (I/WWW) found that almost half of all teachers (47.8%) make some use of the I/WWW in their teaching. One-quarter (23.6%) used it daily and another 43.5% used it at least once a week. Most use was modest, amounting to less than 60 minutes per week (44.5%) to two hours per week (another 22.5%). About half of all Internet users (53.9%) integrated I/WWW content with other learning resources such as television programs. Most common uses are researching topics they are teaching (30.3%), accessing curriculum materials (23.0%), lesson planning (17.0%), direct instruction in the classroom (13.4%), and professional development (11.2%). (Dirr, 1997)
A 1998 study by Quality Education Data (QED) found that almost one out of three teachers (29.2%) uses the Internet daily as a teaching aid; another 28.7% use it two to four days a week, and another 23% use it once a week. (Quality Education Data, 1998) Contrary to what some might believe, the use of computer technologies and the Internet in classes does not diminish the use of television and video: 68% of teachers report that the introduction of computer technologies had no effect on the amount of television and video they used; 24% reported that it increased the use of TV/Video; whereas, only 8% said it decreased the use of TV/Video. (Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 1997)
Barriers To Greater Use
Time constraints are a major barrier to teachers' use of both cable programming and the Internet/World Wide Web. Almost two out of three (65%) teachers cite the lack of time as the major barrier to their use of cable programming. Lack of adequate information in advance is second (46%). Content that does not match curriculum needs is third on the list, and inconvenient program lengths is fourth (31%). (Faiola, 1997; Dirr, 1997)
On the Internet/World Wide Web side, budget constraints are cited as the greatest barrier, followed by lack of time to train, lack of access to phone lines, lack of equipment, lack of opportunity for training, and lack of control over materials accessed. Some of these barriers will decrease over time, especially if the Universal Service Fund (a tax initiative through which the federal government will help schools obtain Internet service) results in an improved infrastructure as it is designed to do. However, nothing on the horizon promises to improve the training available to teachers, and no one has yet tackled the problem of time constraints.
From the literature, one is left with the impression that schools are increasingly gaining access to communications and information technologies and that some teachers are attempting to integrate those technologies and the resources they can deliver into the classes they teach. However, most of the teachers are "self-taught" in these applications and most feel conflicted by the amount of time needed to master and use the technologies. Nevertheless, they continue to apply the technologies because they sense that they are necessary modes of learning for at least some of today's students.
How The Cable Industry Got To This Point
What we know as cable television today is a far cry from its early roots as community antenna television (CATV). In order to sell television sets in the valley community of Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, where the signals from Philadelphia's three broadcast stations 90 miles away provided poor reception, appliance store owner John Walson put a television antenna on a large utility pole on the top of a nearby mountain and ran antenna wire down to his store. Once people saw the programming in the store, television set sales soared. With that, Walson had to provide his customers with television signals in their homes. He devised signal boosters, rented pole space from Pennsylvania Power and Light (for $1.50 per pole per year), and ran sheathed cables into the homes, giving birth to the cable television industry in June 1948. Walson eventually served 85,000 customers on his cable system, charging them $100 for installation and $2 per month for maintenance. He called his system Service Electric Company. (Chiddix, 1991; PCTA, n.d., Rothman, 1996)
About the same time, on the other side of the U.S. in Astoria Oregon, Ed Parsons had promised his wife that he would give her a television set as soon as TV signals became available. When KRSC-TV began broadcasting 150 air miles away in Seattle, Parsons put an antenna on top of the nearby John Jacob Astor Hotel and connected it to his home using cable wiring. When Parson's residence became a popular site for local residents to view TV, he decided to go into business running cable to homes in town. He was soon installing 20 sites per month for $100 each. (Jones, 1996) Other cable pioneers faced with similar reception problems began to build local community antenna television systems in other parts of the country.
The first community antenna television systems served mainly rural and mountainous communities, providing one to three channels of television reception. Systems soon began to crop up in many small towns. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, technology advances, such as transistorized amplifiers, sheathed coaxial cable, and microwave ties, allowed the CATV systems to deliver twelve or more channels.
The early CATV pioneers experienced rapid success because they were providing people with a service they could not otherwise get -- clear television reception in remote or mountainous areas. When companies began to try to move into more urban areas, they met with resistance from a population that could not understand why they should pay for cable service when "television is free." That changed in the early 1970s with the start-up of new programming services. In 1972, Charles Dolan and Gerald Levin, then of Sterling Manhattan Cable, launched the nation's first pay television network, Home Box Office (HBO), to provide sporting events and uninterrupted movies to the growing television public. (NCTA, 1998) In 1975, HBO became the first programming service to use a satellite to distribute programming, making its signal available to cable operators throughout the United States and greatly expanding its potential customer base. Its popularity skyrocketed. HBO saw its subscribers grow to 2 million just three years after the shift to satellite distribution.
Other unique programming services were soon introduced. Ted Turner launched his superstation, WTCG (later renamed WTBS) in Atlanta, in 1976. CNN, Showtime, and ESPN followed shortly. In 1979, the cable industry funded the start-up of the Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN) to provide gavel-to-gavel coverage of the House of Representatives. C-SPAN, which now covers the Senate, hearings, and committee meetings as well as the House proceedings, is still fully funded by the cable industry as its gift to the American people.
Independent community antenna television systems were evolving into a new industry, the cable industry. As its infrastructure developed and expanded, the cable industry began to stimulate the imaginations of some people who saw it as a force that could change society. One such person was free-lance journalist Ralph Lee Smith. He is reputed to have been the first person to use the term "information highway," in a story written for "The Nation" in 1970. Two years later, in his book, "The Wired Nation, Cable TV: The Electronic Communications Highway," Smith envisioned an electronic highway system that would rival the interstate highway system the U.S. had begun to develop under President Eisenhower. The "Wired Nation" would facilitate the exchange of ideas and information in ways not previously possible. That could transform the nation. Smith was about two decades premature in his estimates of when the nation would be wired, but many of his expectations and aspirations are now becoming a reality.
In its early years, the cable television industry was heavily regulated under the Federal Communications Act of 1934. In 1984, however, the Cable Communications Policy Act largely deregulated the industry, allowing cable companies to determine programming and set rates for cable services. That unleashed an unprecedented period of growth for the industry.
The multiple system operators (MSOs -- cable companies that owned cable systems in many places) engaged in fierce competition to wire large cities with the greatest potential for subscribers. Between 1984 and 1989, it is estimated that the cable industry spent $15 billion to build new systems. The result was that by the late 1980s, most large U.S. cities were wired for cable. (Jones, 1996)
In competing for a franchise to wire a city or town, cable companies had to negotiate with local and county governments. Those negotiations often resulted in the successful cable company agreeing to provide free channels for public, educational, and government television programming (PEG channels), as well as subsidies for government, education, and community groups to support their television production efforts. That helped to spawn a loose alliance of persons who produce PEG programming, the Alliance for Community Media, which now represents almost 2,000 community media centers that operate more than 5,000 cable television channels throughout the U.S. (Riedel, 1999)
At the same time the cable companies were expanding the infrastructure nationwide, program services were also expanding, resulting in what to some was a bewildering expansion of potential programming channels, a supply that often outstripped the capacity of the systems that were being built. Many of the new channels catered to very specific markets, interests, and needs, pioneering a new approach to television programming, "niche" programs.
The expansion also provided the cable operators and the programming networks an opportunity to contribute back to the communities from which they were deriving their revenues and to help future generations of American adults. The growth was seen by the cable industry and educators alike as providing opportunities to form new relationships and alliances. In 1989, several events took place that brought cable operators and cable program providers together to make sure that the educational potential of the cable technologies was, in fact, made available to educators throughout the U.S.
In January 1989, entrepreneur Chris Whittle (not associated with the cable industry) announced his intention of providing a new satellite-delivered program service to schools, along with the equipment needed to receive the program and use it in classes. The program would consist of a 12-minute daily news show supported by two minutes of commercials, and schools were required to have their students view the program each day. The idea was criticized strongly by education groups because it introduced commercials directly into the classroom. The service was eventually banned from schools in New York and California but was adopted by some 8,000 schools elsewhere. (Kamil, 1994)
Around that same time, in April 1989, CNN's Ted Turner, bolstered by the results of a pilot program he had conducted two years earlier with the National School Boards Association (NSBA), decided to develop a news show for high school students. Turner enlisted support from executives of three leading MSOs -- Continental Cablevision, Telecommunications Inc. (TCI), and Jones Intercable. Originally intending to incorporate "infomercials" into the news show, but cognizant of the reactions educators were having to the Whittle offer, Turner changed his mind just before the press conference and announced that the program would be provided completely commercial free.
At the same press conference, the executives from Continental Cablevision, TCI, and Jones Intercable pledged to provide a free cable connection to all public secondary schools (later expanded to include all public and private elementary, middle, and high schools) passed by their cables and to provide free cable service to those schools. They also announced their intention to form Cable in the Classroom, a new non-profit company to coordinate the industry's educational services for schools. Before long, other MSOs made similar commitments and additional program networks were identifying programming that they could offer commercial-free, with extended copyright clearances for use by schools.
While these positive developments were taking place, the regulatory pendulum in Washington began to swing back. There was increasing pressure to re-regulate this growing industry. In 1992, the federal government responded with the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act (also known as the Cable Act of 1992). Among other things, the Act codified the need for PEG channels, required cable companies to carry the signal of all the local broadcast stations in the area of the cable system, allowed broadcasters to charge cable companies for carrying their signals, allowed the FCC to regulate cable television rates, established minimum standards for customer service, prohibited local broadcasters from owning cable television systems in their broadcast areas, and prohibited exclusive franchises.
One result of renewed regulation was that it prompted some cable operators to look outside the U.S. for new business opportunities. Some looked to Europe, others to Latin America.
Another result of the dampened atmosphere caused by re-regulation was that it caused cable operators to form alliances with telephone companies to conduct joint research on how they might get more mileage from the existing infrastructure by blending twisted pair telephone wires, coaxial cable, and fiber optic cables to bring richer resources into homes and businesses using the existing infrastructure as much as possible. A vision began to emerge that echoed Ralph Lee Smith's vision from two decades earlier -- an information and entertainment rich environment served by an information superhighway. In the envisioned environment, differences between cable television, computers, and telephone would gradually disappear and be replaced by groups of information utilities that used a common standard. The convergence of the technologies began to emerge.
The regulatory environment changed again in 1996, when Congress passed the 1996 Telecommunications Act which deregulated almost all aspects of cable television. This took place at the same time the cable industry was beginning to feel outside competitive forces from telephone companies, satellite program distributors, and the wireless distribution industry. Companies began to realize quickly that to be competitive they would need more resources than most of them could muster individually. Furthermore, their services would be stronger if they were "clustered" in service areas rather than scattered in many parts of the country. That unleashed another spree of industry consolidation, with large and medium MSOs buying out smaller companies, a trend that continues today. Federal deregulation of the cable industry also unleashed an unprecedented spending spree, with all the major MSOs spending billions of dollars to upgrade their system infrastructure to accommodate the increased flow if information that was quickly evolving. Coincident with the growth of the Internet, the upgraded systems allowed cable operators to introduce Internet services as one of their products.
Conclusion
Today, the cable industry in the United States is a robust business. The physical infrastructure of the cable companies has positioned them to be major providers of broadband services (i.e., the capacity needed to deliver the high volume of information needed for video, audio, and text resources). Most MSOs now offer 60 to 200 channels of service. The program networks (over 175 of them at last count) are spending billions of dollars each year to create new products for the general public as well as the niche markets they serve, including education. Never before have so many homes been connected to cable (approximately 71 million).
Where the consolidation of companies and convergence of technologies will lead is a topic of great debate as we close out the second Millennium. Whatever the specific outcomes of the debate, it is likely that the future will see an environment more like than unlike Ralph Lee Smith's vision -- one in which all persons will have easy access to vast information resources. In that environment, teachers and learners of all ages will have access to new learning resources that present and manage information in new ways.
One characteristic that sets the cable industry apart from other communication providers in the U.S. is that it continues to allocate a significant amount each year to provide teachers and learners with educational resources and helps them to use those resources effectively. As the brochure cited at the beginning of this chapter notes, today's cable operators and program networks provide more than $2 million per week (over $100 million per year) in support of education. There is nothing on the horizon to suggest that this commitment will do anything but grow in the foreseeable future. Through Cable in the Classroom, teachers and learners of all ages will continue to have access to educational programming and rich ancillary materials that support a lifetime of learning.
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