Origins

• Satellite TV as it is known today can be traced to 1957, when Russian astronauts successfully launched Sputnik into orbit. The United States followed closely behind with the launch of Explorer I in 1958. At the purest level, satellites are objects that orbit the earth. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, began the same year as Explorer's launch and was created to find suitable uses for satellites. More than a decade later, TV entered the picture.
  
  

Cable TV Channels Born

• Prior to the mid-1970s, cable companies largely existed to deliver broadcast television signals to communities in outlying areas. In the mid to late 1970s, satellites began revolutionizing the cable industry with exclusive channels that could not be viewed over the air. Home Box Office, or HBO, was the first such channel. Beginning in 1972, the pay-TV service was delivered to a few cable systems through microwave relay technology. It went national in 1975 because of a satellite. Other early cable channels that benefited from satellites were the Christian Broadcasting Network (now known as ABC Family) and the Appalachian Community Service Network (now known as The Learning Channel, or TLC).
  
  

Turner Station Goes National

• One of the early sources of programming for cable companies were superstations. Ted Turner began the phenomenon when he put his Atlanta-based independent TV station, WTCG-TV (later WTBS-TV and now WPCH-TV) on a C-Band satellite in 1976 to cable companies. Turner utilized a separate company, Southern Satellite Systems, to oversee national distribution of the channel. In subsequent years, other independent stations---namely WGN-TV in Chicago and WOR-TV (now WWOR-TV) in New York---also were being beamed to cable subscribers' homes throughout the U.S. The Federal Communications Commission currently deems six channels as superstations that can be distributed via satellite throughout the country. In addition to WGN and WWOR, there is KTLA-TV (Los Angeles), KWGN-TV (Denver), WPIX-TV (New York) and WSBK-TV (Boston).
  
  

Dish Owners Uncommon in 1980s

• Throughout the 1980s, a small handful of American viewers purchased large, C-Band dishes to receive TV signals from satellites orbiting the earth. The vast majority of subscribers, however, chose to subscribe to cable TV as an alternative because it was more cost-effective. Cable operators, owning dishes themselves, piped in the signals from dishes into subscribers' homes through copper wire.
  
  

Dishes Become Popular in 1990s

• In the early 1990s, owning a satellite dish became a viable alternative for consumers, effectively removing cable companies as the middlemen. Technological advances resulted in Direct Broadcast Satellite systems that were far smaller than the more grandiose C-Band dishes. One of the first providers of DBS, Primestar, offered an affordable service that advanced the popularity from the C-Band dishes. The success meant DBS became a serious competitor to the more established cable companies.