Comment by hagbard_c

Not at all, commercial television has been a thing for a long time. Government gets involved when deciding who gets to use the limited radio frequency spectrum used to transmit television signals over the ether but it has been possible to offer a wide array of television channels over cable for a long time as well. Government gets involved when deciding who gets to run cables for cable television and tends (or tended) to mandate some specific channels which should be available but those were/are only a small fraction of the available choice.