Comment by icedchai
3 days ago
Not entirely true. The "premium" channels (HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, Bravo, The Movie Channel, etc.) never had ads.
Then there were channels like Nickelodeon that originally had no ads, then added them in the mid 80's. I remember this distinctly because I was annoyed by it. My parents got cable in 1980 when it first came to our area.
It was only because they didn’t have enough viewers to convince companies to pay for ads.
The "premium" movie channels had tons of paying subscribers. They didn't need ads. It was very much a selling point for those channels.
I was talking about Nickelodeon