Weather Watchers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HBO

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History

Development and launch

In 1965, Charles Dolan—who had already done pioneering work in the commercial use of cables and had developed Teleguide, a closed-circuit tourist information television system distributed to hotels in the New York metropolitan area—won a franchise to build a cable television system in the Lower Manhattan section of New York City. The new system, which Dolan named "Sterling Information Services" (later to be known as Sterling Manhattan Cable, and eventually becoming the then Time Warner Cable which merged into Charter Communications in 2016), became the first urban underground cable television system in the United States.

Rather than stringing cable on telephone poles or using microwave antennas to receive the signals, Sterling laid cable beneath the streets. This was partly because the tall buildings in the city blocked television signals, and partly because the New York City Council had required that all electrical and telecommunication wiring be laid underground to limit service disruptions during bad weather—an ordinance that was passed after a blizzard in 1888 damaged telephone and telegraph lines in the area. In 1973, Time-Life, Inc. purchased a 20% stake in Dolan's company.

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