business. In 1996, media baron Rupert Murdoch
launched the Fox News Channel to compete against
CNN. By the close of the decade, cable companies
were delivering their programming via satellite, giv-
ing viewers twenty-four-hour access to music, sports,
movies, news, and weather as well as children’s pro-
gramming, religious networks, and foreign-language
channels.
More and more cable companies began merging
with other media outlets to form huge multimedia
conglomerates. In 1996, Walt Disney Company,
owner of cable networks A&E and Lifetime, merged
with Capital Cities/ABC. In October, 1996, Time
Warner, Inc., acquired Ted Turner’s TBS, making an
already vast empire even larger. Tele-Communica-
tions, Inc. (TCI) had acquired so many cable compa-
nies by the mid-1990’s that it provided cable to al-
most one in three U.S. households and owned
significant interests in cable networks that included
BET, the Discovery Channel, and the Family Chan-
nel. In 1999, Viacom Inc., owner of MTV, VH1, and
Nickelodeon, announced that it was buying the Co-
lumbia Broadcasting System (CBS), home to the
television news magazine program60 Minutesand
famous news journalists Dan Rather, Walter Cron-
kite, and Edward R. Murrow. The Viacom-CBS
merger (completed in May, 2000) would become
the largest in U.S. history, with Viacom becom-
ing the second-biggest media conglomerate behind
Time Warner.
Impact By the end of the decade, approximately
seven in ten television households, more than 65 mil-
lion, had opted to subscribe to cable, generating an-
nual revenues of $48.2 million. In its short history,
cable television quickly became a cultural force that
significantly redefined news, sports, and music pro-
gramming and changed the way in which people
watched television.
Further Reading
Barron, Stanley J. “Cable and Other Multichannel
Services.” InIntroduction to Mass Communication:
Media Literar y and Culture. 3d ed. New York:
McGraw Hill, 2004. This university-level textbook
covers a variety of media-related topics to help
students become better consumers of media con-
tent. Includes a chapter on the history of cable
and how cable television has shaped and reflected
culture.
Mullen, Megan.Television in the Multichannel Age: A
Brief Histor y of Cable Television.Malden, Mass.:
Blackwell, 2008. Using oral history transcripts,
personal interviews, and government documents,
Mullen traces the evolution of cable television
from its origins in the late 1940’s to the communi-
cations satellites and direct broadcast distribu-
tion systems of the modern digital age, both in
the United States and internationally. Discusses
factors that have influenced the television land-
scape, including government policy making,
emerging technologies, and the public’s pro-
gramming tastes.
Parsons, Patrick R.Blue Skies: A Histor y of Cable Televi-
sion. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008.
A complete history of cable television that traces
the social, economic, geographical, political, and
technological changes and advancements that
created the cable industry.
Eddith A. DashiellSee also Children’s television; Children’s Televi-
sion Act of 1990; CNN coverage of the Gulf War; Dig-
ital divide;MTV Unplugged; Telecommunications Act
of 1996; Television; UPN television network; WB
television network. Cammermeyer, Margarethe
Identification American military officer
Born March 24, 1942; Oslo, Norway
As one of the first open homosexuals to reveal themselves
within the U.S. militar y, Cammermeyer was a symbol for
the greater visibility of gays and lesbians in the 1990’s.
Margarethe Cammermeyer was born in Norway dur-
ing the wartime Nazi occupation and immigrated to
the United States as a child. She joined the U.S.
Army as a nurse, served in the Army Reserve in Viet-
nam, was eventually promoted to full colonel in the
Washington National Guard, and became a re-
spected authority in neuroscience in nursing. She
married, gave birth to four sons, then divorced. In
her forties, she came out as lesbian and started a rela-
tionship with another woman. Cammermeyer re-
vealed that she was lesbian in response to a 1989
questionnaire.
The Army had long banned homosexuals, osten-
sibly not for moral or religious reasons but becauseThe Nineties in America Cammermeyer, Margarethe 141