Creepy Anti-Cable (Pay TV) PSA from the 70's
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2024
- An "Anti-cable" television ad from the 70's (then known as Pay-TV) to discourage viewers to support cable television. Ironically, they encouraged people to support the movie theaters. Just some ploy by Network television companies to eliminate the competition from cable TV.
I remember when cable TV first started out in the early days. Their big selling point they always pushed was that their programming was commercial free. That only lasted a couple of years.
Sounds very similar to Netflix.
@@NJ_Dsneybuf bro. i used to get netflix movies in the mail.....
Cable gets ya more shows and better stuff,Not like PBS And their Goverment owned shows,some where good,others where bad (By bad i Mean Rosies Rules)
@@randomboi66 wow, way to tell on yourself there.
Sounds very similar to RUclips.
40+ years later, we are paying for EVERYTHING
David J Exactly
Math is not your strong suit, is it? This was 40+ years ago.
just the youth who were brainwashed in school after the napster days on how torrents are immoral.
Yes we are, but we didn’t listen lol
@@curtspins7626 😂
The early years of cable TV was like exploring a new frontier. You had endless channels with very specific programming. Now they’ve all merged into barely discernible reality TV, travel or food networks.
Network decay. Sadly the hyper niche programming is what ruined some of the channels that no longer exist.
I means does cable even matter at this point. People go on streaming now, and there are free sites like RUclips where we get free entertainment. Cable is irrelevant in this day and age
@@Tast-1934.at this point who knows? cable TV these days is somebody paying more money to get less stuff to watch (or leas programs that would be “interesting” for the paid individual). plus there’s already streaming services (and of course youtube as we’re on)
The main reason for this PSA was that before pay TV it would be years before feature films would appear on television, and even then in heavily edited format. The notion of recent feature films showing up uncut in America's households represented a threat to movie theaters, particularly drive-ins that played second-run features. Their fears proved to be well-founded.
will89687 I guess the petition didn't work.
34thstreetman That's why it so funny to watch now.
will89687 The funny thing is, not only were they not run out of business, they actually came out a lot stronger.
AllRequired Yeah those drive-ins are a booming business I might even open 5 of them myself. There is hardly a place you can go without seeing vast sprawls of drive-in theaters. So yeah those drive-ins are really thriving and came out a lot stronger.
Drive-ins might have had reason to fear, but the standard indoor movie theaters definitely didn't.
In retrospect they were 100% right.
@Jord The Canadian and yet: collossal corporate monsters HAVE in fact completely taken over television, have killed public broadcasting, and are now - exactly as predicted - the stuff of political nightmares.
Yes, there was cable TV in the 60's and 70's. Mostly in the hilly areas of upstate NY and PA, where there were large populations, but broadcast TV had difficultly reaching. Cable was a way to receive a clear signal of the local stations, then in 1972, somebody invented HBO and thing began to change.
I knew a guy who brought cable to the cambria county area .. when Comcast bought him and his partners out .. he put in the contract that they'd never have to pay for cable .. dude gets free cable to this very day .. I said man you really had them by the balls .. he said I ripped them off and put them in a jar ... lmao
BET and Nickelodeon started in the 70s as well.
Cable TV actually dates to the very beginning of TV! Hell, in PA alone, it dates to the late 1940s!
The monsters won :(.
They won the battle but lost the war.
Tv is becoming obsolete! 🎉🎉🎉
Then came Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+, which is overall cheaper than cable
Or RUclips
And we're all better off for it
@@thecianinator Being a paranoid divisive wreck of society spurned on by cable news networks is better off?
@@lennonnicolas5994
The war is ongoing.
I remember this. It was like mass hysteria, all the adults were all afriad of "Ooooo PAY TV!" and "Cable is scary! They want us to PAY for TV??" and no one realized that it WASN'T the "channels you already get for free" once we all got cable we realized it's worth the money for all the commercial-free movie channels and no more RABBIT EAR antenna's on top of the tv causing poor reception.
A much better slogan today would be, "Don't let 'Pay-To-Win' be the monster on your computer."
Stoneth or maybe fake surveys.
This ad was obviously a plug by the movie theaters as full, unedited, uninterrupted movies at home posed a direct threat to their business. I am guessing this was before VCRs and video rentals became commonplace as well. Amazingly, a couple of brand-spankin' new theaters with "Luxe" seating and service have opened within 5 miles of me during the past decade. In retrospect, the theater biz is doing just fine.
People are fighting back against the Monster by cutting the cord!
rockvilleraven and they're all moving to free tv providers like pluto TV.
Swordchicken that means the monster wins
The monster still wins..
The monster is winning even more now we just killed the middle man
Only now they’re switching to something much worse.
Well that worked out well!
I mean things like netflix and youtube are taking over so they technically didn't lose.
Darkk_est but netflix is pay tv too
SouthCalifas619 netflix has nothing on it though, just go online and watch everything, or get Hulu
.... OH GOD THEY WERE RIGHT
In the area where I grew up, it was almost impossible to watch over-the-air TV. Due to the distances from the closest TV stations, even the biggest antenna could barely receive a station (and the quality was unwatchable). I was extremely thankful for the pay TV option (cable).
That WAS the original use for cable. And that was a good use. It devolved.
Distinctly remember seeing this, NOT on TV, but at the drive-in movies in the very early 1970s (sitting in my parent's late 60s Plymouth Fury station wagon). VERY creepy, especially to a little kid sitting in the dark. So creepy that I still remembered it almost 50 years later, that's why I searched for it. Imagine watching classic Intermission cartoons of hot dogs jumping through hoops and dancing cups of soda and then this nightmare comes on. Possibly the reason I still don't like "pay tv" and prefer broadcast (antenna) television. But knowing I was tucked in that big beautiful car somehow helped me feel safe again. Also possibly part of the reason I drive a very similar late 1960s Chrysler to this day. Kind of cathartic seeing it again, it's not quite as creepy as an adult. But I'm still keeping the car.
Kinda wish I saw it on the big screen like that. It’s such an odd mix of high production value and low budget
finally! someone actually remembers it correctly! did you see it in the Detroit area?
I have a feeling this ad was made in 1964. In California, Proposition 15 was put on the ballot. A YES vote would abolish Pay TV and keep Free TV alive. The measure passed by a 2 to 1 margin. These ads worked for a while. The measure was overturned later on, though, and Subscription TV (now Cable and Premium TV) would be here to stay.
Remember when cable TV was $15 a month, didn't have any commercials, and you didn't have to rent equipment every month? Those were the days.
Now you pay about $70 per month for what used to be Expanded Basic cable, and almost $10/mo per TV for the most basic converter box. Highway robbery. You're better off getting a good Internet connection and $10/mo Netflix.
$7 a month back in 1976 to get commercial free hockey games and better reception on the regular channels. Don't remember what the extra channels were.
Here's a coincidence for you; the week before the Super Bowl, Cablevision was up on the poles stringing their wire. In the middle of the game, Huntington (NY) Cable goes out.
I got a call today from someone trying to sell me Dish Network, and all I said was "Don't let pay TV be the monster in your living room!"
Used to have dish
I remember one of the big things about cable is that you could see cartoons all day and everyday,not just on Saturday or certain times of the day. Back in that time, those that had cable had it because they usually had a lot of money
If you take away the movie theaters' ulterior motives for this PSA, I'd say it was ahead of its time.
I remember as a farm kid how badly I wanted my parents to get satellite so I could watch cartoons to my heart's content. We signed up in 1998; the first 5 years were great, but as time went by, my favorite shows came and went only to be replaced by crap, less show time more commercials, and packages became less channels for more money. After 14 years, we pulled the plug on satellite for good. Sure, there are times where I miss it, but it's not worth paying 160 dollars or more a month to wade through a pool of shit programing for the few shows that are actually worth watching. We're back to getting our TV through indoor/outdoor antennas, and while there's not much, in terms of quality, it's at least free.
+LuigiGodzillaGirl 160 a month for satellite? I always thought satellite was the cheaper younger brother of cable, not vice versa.
I know, but this was the MPAA's motive of that era to discourage viewers to purchase cable TV. No big deal to us the consumers, but to the big movie companies.
0:22 Don't Let Pay Tv Eat A Monster In Your Living Room
If I didn't live in a basement condo, I would do the same. Cable TV is such a scam now. When I first got cable in the 1980s it was really good. There was many stations that showed some really good old TV reruns....and not just the common Gilligans Island and Lucy, It's all info mercials now
I'd say the last time cable was a good deal was in the late 80s early 90s. I was renting an apartment at the time & signed up for cable. There was 'only' about 36 channels, but that included local, & all the main cable channels. TBS, discovery, A&E, the learning channel, Comedy Central, etc, & for just under $40 a month, it even included HBO. Not always, but sometimes the phrase 'the good old days' is 100% accurate.
That's what I miss.
Damn good description of that time period! My grandma got cable in the 70s but I really didn't watch it until around 1983 (I just turned three) when I got excited at Fraggle Rock on HBO and Pinwheel on Nickelodeon. We finally got cable at our house around 1986.
I would go and say that 1988-2002 was the best period for cable, right before the reality TV rot started setting in more.
"Monsters, do Have Their Place."
Me : *In The Internet*
Lol 😂
That's right! Feature length horror movies without commercial interruption and unedited have no business being on your TV.
This was actually from 1964, as part of a ballot initiative in California when a limited area wired pay-per-view service was created as an experiment. Specifically, Proposition 15 banned cable television, and was ultimately declared unconstitutional by the courts.
no, it's from the Detroit area in the late 1970s, after theaters tried to get cable banned. which went nowhere.
@@Aspen-The-Folf Correct! It's nowhere near 1964. (Cable wasn't really a "thing" yet in1964). This was shown in Midwestern theaters in about 1976-77 or so. I'm getting old, so I can't remember the exact year.
@@jamesslick4790 Also, the music sounds more like something from the 1970s. Ads from 1964 would essentially look like the conservative and clean cut ads of the 1950s.
@@jamesslick4790 1969 I believe for this one
Now we not only pay for tv, we also pay for radio and even tap water. Shit falls out of the sky for free and now we get charged for it. Never in a million years did we ever think we’d be buying bottled water. Whatta scam .
I grew up in Chicago, back in the 80s there were about 12 free OTA channels. Even cable then only added really 20-30 channels at the most.
Now, I counted up over SEVENTY digital channels in Chicagoland. Even if only 40-45 are "broadly interesting" (ie, not shopping, religious, radar, etc).that is still more FREE OTA content now in a major market than you had at all in the 80s.
One has to wonder if they were able to figure out digital signals in the 70s or 80s, how does that impact the rise of cable TV?
Had 3 networks in the 70's and it was tough figuring out what to watch. Now we got 500 channels of shit where half the shows are commercials interrupted by more commercials and the same crap runs over and over again. A real improvement.
Too far one way.
Too far another.
At that time my city banned pay TV. -Until they found out it could be taxed...
Was born in '81 and first became aware of and obsessed with cable television in '85. Best era of cable, in my opinion.
This commercial correctly predicted what a nightmare streaming services would be like in 2024 - lousy quality and content and ever higher monthly fees to subscribers.
I haven't had cable/satellite tv now for almost 5 years. I don't miss it one bit.
Who needs cable tv when you have the internet?
when I was a kid I always wanted a customized TV channel. Now we can have it on the internet. yay!
As I said elsewhere, cable channels like MTV, VH1, A&E, the History Channel, the Food Channel and others were good when there were less people paying. Those that were in those days were a more educated and sophistiicated audience seeking alternatives to the three networks and UHF. Now a bigger chunk of the audience is paying, the market adjusted and the kind of programming those and other channels had have moved on to pay extra channels.
Bro History Channel was 1995 cable was well established by then. Also History Channel was never good. It obviously wasn't as useless as it is today but it was filled to the brim with subpar WW2 documentaries that had a weird fascination with the Germans.
What's worse about cable today (or any form of TV entertainment) is not only do you PAY for every bit of programming, but they STILL force-feed all the advertising down your throat. So not only do you pay for what you want, you also get to pay for all the commercials too. Then the people who make the commercials have to pay to have them aired. Obviously these people make out bigtime.
Well, that aged like milk! 😂
Lol
free TV rules
@@nicholaslull1415 It still exist, all you need is an aerial!
This was from back in the day when people knew they didn't have to pay for everything, and they knew they could influence the politicians to be on their side.
How delusional would you have to be to think politicians were less insulated from public opinion in the 70s?
I cut the cable cord over a year ago--best thing I did. Before that I was paying for the privilege of watching infomercials (paid programming). Now if I turn on an infomercial I know I'm not paying to watch it. Cable companies are double dipping--they get revenue from you AND from companies whose products are featured in those infomercials.
We cut the cord about 3 years ago. Couldn’t be happier. Initially, the idea was to provide content without commercial interruption. That didn’t last. Why pay to watch commercials the providers get paid to air??
"Sign the petition in the lobby of this theater..."
And that, boys and girls, should tell you who was behind this ridiculous display. They sure have suffered in the years since then...
Ah the Golden Age of TV, when there were only four channels counting PBS, and the National Association of Broadcasters fought like heck (got to meet broadcast standards, do you know!) to keep it that way.
Some people are assuming this ad came before PBS was even born.
Guess who won?
And we all know how that new-fangled Pay-TV came out...
What's really funny is that the early promise of cable tv was that, because you were paying for it, it would be commercial free. And it was. For about five minutes. Now every channel is riddled with ads for everything including programs/movies on *other* channels. And they've been trying to do it to the radio for a number of years now. "As we celebrate mediocrity all the boys upstairs want to see
How much you'll pay for what you used to get for free" -- Tom Petty "The Last DJ"
Today, this is more relevant than ever. Cable TV prices are so ridiculous nowadays.
I have a homemade antenna in my room. It's okay, but when channels do come in clear it's good. Been enjoying PBS and some of the obscure channels like H&I and This TV. I also have Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, which is technically pay TV but much more reasonable.
7 years later: wait what’s cable tv?
Lmfao I can't stop cracking up at this. Monsters do have their place... in the zoo... in your nightmares... in the deep... in your favorite horror movies... but not in your living room, on your TV! hahahaha
I just wish I could order stations a la carte instead of having to get a package full of filler stations.
I guess movie theater owners were concerned that people would stay home to watch recently released movies than go to the movie theater. With the quality of TVs back then, watching Jaws or Rocky on a 19 inch television hardly was the experience of going to a movie theater. In the Los Angeles area, before cable was widely available, ON TV and Select TV started scrambled broadcasting over the air for a monthly fee. People paid for the service but still went to the movies. As cable systems slowly were completed, these services lost subscribers and eventually disappeared. Fast forward to this year. There's basically unlimited channels by streaming or cable where people watch the stuff on high-quality HD video and audio, but there's nothing worth watching. :/
The entire trouble with cable television is the monopolization CAUSED by regulation. Most locations only have one option in cable television, and that provider serves the local government. If you want lower prices and higher service, then work to kill those monopolies - which the cable companies support.
But even with cable monopolies, the cable companies cannot "force" you to buy anything you don't want. You still have the option of free over the air TV or satellite television.
Im gonna sign that petition right now!
i cant imagine living in a world where we would have to pay absurd amounts of money for entertainment we wouldn't even care to involve ourselves in...
wait...
Yeah,me too.Theres just something about the artwork thats just very sinister and creepy
People have nobody but themselves to blame when it comes to cable TV. Apparently we have all been content paying for something we are already paying for.
This was not a television ad, it was played in midwestern movie theaters in the mid 1970s. And it's not creepy, but very true. More true NOW!
Ironically, movie theaters originally competed against the Television industry because they enabled people to watch free broadcasting without being charged and in the convenience of their own homes. Network television and cable/pay-TV should've teamed up against the movie theaters. I believe movie theaters formed an alliance with the wrong industry to stop cale TV. Apparently, viewers weren't buying into this conspiracy.
If this campaign was successful, premium TV channels like Nickelodeon and Disney Channel would prob never exist and even worse, the meaning of this creepy PSA will hit even harder
i see a conflict of interest here seeing how this ad was ran at a movie theater. clearly this wasn't over concern for the public good.
@Just4Meeeee You're absolutely right. Can't stand watching commercials on cable tv. Not having them was the actual difference between "free" tv and cable.
They tried to warn us, we didn’t listen
Before the cable is evil commercials
That aged horrifyingly well.
You asr so right. And every time I call them about something they try to get me to add more channels. I tell them I don't even look at the channels that I have now!
THINK ABOUT IT! We are paying for television that we used to get free. You can't even get OTA tv anymore because you have to buy a $40 HD converter box. Also I can see the movie theatre's railing against it as yjey realized that more people would stay home and watch HBO, Showtime, etc. That is one of the reason's going out to a movie is so damned expensive anymore. By the way this month my familly is having to decide on whether to pay our cable bill or pay our health insurance for the month.
I haven't watched tv in almost 2 years - but I watch plenty of television shows on Hulu, Veoh, etc. Yay for truly free tv!
13 years later, welcome to the future, where Hulu, is unfortunately not free anymore, you have to pay for it now.
Had I been an adult when this ad ran, I would have never subscribed to cable TV.
Wish people had listened. Then we'd have no Jersey shore, 16 and pregnant, Flavor of love, B.E.T. ec.
LOL
@ThePhantomSafetyPin This was pretty early in cable technology, cable was invented so that rural areas could get network channels from long distances.
Fun fact: Keigo Oyamada, known for his moniker "Cornelius", used parts of this commercial to make the video of his song "Magoo Opening" (Monkey).
I couldn't live without cable tv. It's the best invention since Air Conditioning.
man that vampire looked like he was having a blast....
It keeps on going UP!UP!UP!
Yeah they did that shit here in Indianapolis talking about corporations want us to pay for radio instead of getting it free.
I wonder how they would feel about pay radio.
it took almost thirty years for this to come about but it did with the tv inverter box back in 1999
In my country it arrived at the end of the ´90s and in the north hemisphere it was in the 70´s????? Gosh I wish I had paid cable in the 70´s, free tv was awful. Greetings from Uruguay, on the south of the planet.
I don't know why, but this video gives me goosebumps... and no, it's not because of the monsters...
Wow, that commercial was against pay tv channels like HBO!!!!
Also cable channels as well!!
The monsters want to make you pay for TV!
RIP, free TV.
Vote4cake Oh no. Free TV is still alive, but all digital now. I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon.
We should have heeded this warning!
OTA isn't so bad nowadays. At least if you like classic sitcoms and Saturday morning cartoons.
I really don't miss cable. And people talk enough about Jersey Shore and The Kardashians as well as what shows up on the newsstands about them so I know more than I care to know about what's going on there.
Haven't paid for TV since 2001. Never looked back.
Obviously, the petition did not work!
Hank Simms, greatest announcer ever...
@Borntocoast I remember it very well, it was to be the wave of the future! ANd then I remembered the commercials arriving and we all said, "hey! then why are we paying for this?" Alas, we didn't see any price decrease, it instead began to rise. Now, analog TV is totally gone. maybe this bizarre ad was onto something.
It's all my fault, I should have signed that petition!
you'll be telling your grandkids how it wasn't a corporate tiered Internet when you were young
"I remember when MTV played music videos ..." (in voice of an old man who then tells the kids to "STAY OFF MY LAWN!"
I remember that. They broadcast on ch. 44 UHF. A friend of ours built us a black box for it. Then we could watch the hard R's without the sqibbly line in the middle
I'll sent an episode of "Jersey Shore" back to the 70's... That would scare people away from cable for sure!!!
Cable was originally supposed to be ad free. This PSA is even more appropriate today.Remember when You Tube was ad free before Google monster botched it all up ?
Damn. I knew I should have signed that petition.
Remember when cable was telling us how once we were paying for cable there would be commercial free TV? How ironic that now there are tv channels with commercials only - that's right, we are paying for commercial only TV,
I guess enough people didn't bother signing the petition because we are getting bent over left and right
This is from the 1960s. Long before there was any HBO. And many places did not have cable, and if they did it was just over the air TV. It must be a local attempt at squashing cable. Certainly not nationwide.
Got sick of giving my cable money to channels I found reprehensible (MTV, FOX News etc) and quit. They have got to stop bundling these networks.
Thank god there's still FREE TV.
Great, now we pay for tv, plus we still have ads. It's a win-win!
This spot was obviously shown during the intermission of a film in theaters. I hear no advertising for theaters, other than the lobby of the one the viewers would already have been in...
I have neither cable nor a television. Anything that I want to watch, I can easily download.
@JetstreamGW yes, this was the 70's because this PSA was shown in movie theaters first before it was shown anywhere else
I live in metro boston and you can get 18 channels with no cable....just old fashioned antenna on top of the TV