Ok, so this dates me, but yes, I do remember the days before cable existed.... we did indeed have a black & white tv, and...AND... we had to GET UP and TURN THE KNOB to change the channel!! (the horrors!)
Oh, OH... and THEN you'd have to adjust the RABBIT EARS in order to get a semi-decent picture! You had to do this each time you changed the channel!
When cable first came out, it basically eliminated the need to fiddle with the rabbit ears.
Then Showtime & HBO appeared and that was *cough* AWESOME! : Oh my, the ability to watch uncut movies without commercial interruption - WILD! ;D So basically, cable TV meant you could watch movies from home, and that was really cool! ;D
Oh, and then came Turner Broadcasting Network.... watching a station from a different part of the country - what a concept. Too bad the station sucked, but it did give birth to CNN (24 hr news?! What's THAT?!?).
I can remember in high school all the hype about this new music channel on cable TV. It was supposed to be a BIG THING, but all we saw were basically concert footage, or videos of bands just standing there lipsynching to their songs (and the sync was WAY off!). We were not impressed.
That new channel? MTV.
Keep in mind, the Internet wasn't available to the public yet!
Only 7 channes of HBO... pfffft! ;D