National Cable & Telecommunications Association - History

History

NCTA first was organized as the National Community Television Council in September 1951, when a small group of community antenna (CATV) operators met at a hotel in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. They gathered in response to concern over the Internal Revenue Service's attempts to impose an 8% excise tax on their operations. These business people quickly became aware of other common interests, leading to a series of organizational meetings during September and October 1951 and January 1952. In January 1952, the organization's name officially was changed to National Community Television Association.

NCTA's growth kept pace with the rapidly expanding CATV industry. Within its first year, nearly 40 CATV systems joined the organization. Membership then grew into hundreds by the end of the 1950s and thousands by the end of the 1960s. In the 1960s, the term "Community Antenna Television (CATV)" gave way to the term "cable," reflecting the industry's expanded categories of service – including local news, weather information, and channels of pay television. Accordingly, in 1968, NCTA – while retaining its acronym – changed its official name for the first time, to National Cable Television Association.

Following the introduction of global telecommunication satellites, the late 1970s and 1980s saw initial explosive growth in cable content, as entrepreneurs gave birth to such networks as CNN, ESPN, MTV, BET, TBS, USA, Discovery, Lifetime, C-SPAN, and eventually hundreds of other channels. During this period, virtually all of the nation’s major programming services also joined NCTA, providing a new dimension to the organization’s representation of cable interests in Washington.

The mid-1990s marked the beginning of cable’s transformation from a one-way video provider to a much broader interactive telecommunications solution. By 2006, cable operators had largely completed a national fiber optic upgrade which enables them to provide consumers new services such as high definition television, high-speed Internet access, digital phone, and digital video recording.

To reflect this transformation, NCTA in 2001 – while again retaining its acronym – changed its name for the second time to the National Cable & Telecommunications Association.

Today, NCTA remains headquartered in Washington, D.C. The association also provides management oversight of two non-profit organizations: Cable in the Classroom, the cable industry’s education foundation, and the Walter Kaitz Foundation, which promotes diversity in cable’s workforce, supplier chain, content, and marketing.