This paper is about the historical research on the development of CATV system in Taiwan. The paper takes the main operators of Community Antenna TV ("CATV") from1962 to 1993 as pioneers developing "CATV". By the empirical observations towards these operators, this paper makes explanations on the obtainment of cable technology and the dynamic process of capital accumulation. In methodology, this paper gets its information mainly from the references consulting and in-depth interviews. The chosen operators are from the 112 "CATV" operators recorded in the second meeting on the third year of Association of Community Antenna TV. Then, 20 operators are chosen as the "CATV" pioneers in this paper according to the "earliest CATV operators of each county and city."
This research finds out that the main explanation for the electrical as equipment vendors were concurrently in charge of "CATV" affairs then is due to the personal relationships between the customers and the operator. In solving the TV viewing problems, a few electrical equipment vendors that had better radio technology could set up better antenna systems so as to make a distinction from other electrical equipment vendors. Finally, in the end of 1970, "CATV" appeared in a larger scale in Taiwan for the first time.
After 1980, the CATV systems started to expand, and the operators started to need industrial class of cable TV technologies. Later, they imported cable TV equipment and technologies from America and Japan. Consequently, the problems about technology were solved, and the CATV operators in Taiwan gradually cast off concurrent job of both CATV maintaining and electrical equipment vending, having become the Cable TV operators.
But in the late period of 1980, the illegal forth stations and democratic stations rose abruptly. The CATV operators had suffered from lacking capital because the government didn ’t set a law to protect them properly. Later in 1993, after Cable TV Decree had been announced, the CATV operators cannot but to be annexed to the tycoons to pass the capital threshold of 200million dollars. Generally speaking, CATV in Taiwan did not appear only after the announcement of Cable TV Decree in 1993. So, researchers that are interested in cable TV development in Taiwan cannot exclude them from those CATV operators. The focus in the paper, however, is on the pioneers of those CATV systems. The remaining part of the issues as the producing systems of antenna equipment, the illegal forth station around Taiwan, and the issues about the annexation between the operators and the tycoons, etc. is all worth future researchers attention.
中文關鍵詞
有線電視,社區共同天線,大樓主天線系統,傳播科技,傳播史
英文關鍵詞
CATV,Cable TV,Community Antenna Television,Master Antenna Television,Communication Technology,Media History