Kay & Ted & such: The cable era began
(This is the latest chapter in a book-in-progress, “Television, and How It Got That Way.” To catch the full book, from the start, simply hit the category “The Book.”)
As a star student, Kay Smith could have picked almost anything for her Master’s Degree thesis. She chose satellite communication.
It was an odd choice, because … well, there was no satellite communication.
This was 1967, just a decade after Sputnik and just two years after the Early Bird became the first commercial satellite. But Smith felt bigger things were coming.
Ten years after that thesis, she created the Madison Square Garden Network. By then, she was Kay Koplovitz; soon, it would be the USA Network; she and Ted Turner (shown here) would pioneer a cable-TV era. Read more…
