It all began in the 1980s. Ronald Regan was president and one of the many controversial things he did in that office was to deregulate the TV industry. Why did he do it? Well, as a conservative Republican he lived and breathed by the free market rule, which stated that the government didnt belong in business, and businesses should live and die by the success or failure of their own practices and market forces.
At the same time, cable TV was just starting its expansion into the American television marketplace, and that opened up a huge broadcast venue which simply didnt exist beforehand. Anybody with any experience in the broadcast industry was starting his own channel and pretty soon cable channels were commonplace. The most successful channels at the time were religious based channels which were basically used for fundraising purposes. There were literally hundreds of them, from local, small time reverends and ministers with dubious backgrounds, to nationally broadcast spiritual and religious shows, utilizing well-known religious figures.
At this point, two things happened. For one, many of the young, fledgling channels and networks who counted on ad revenue...