More than 52 million cable customers (50.5% penetration, 1988)
households with cable TV subscription
No current source auditAll sources · source collection
Cable History Timeline (NCTA/Syndeo Institute)
Syndeo Institute (formerly NCTA Foundation) · 2022
Source notes & limitations
National cable penetration milestones from industry trade association. 1988: 50.5% penetration. 1989: more than 52M cable customers, 9,050 systems. 1999: 66.7M customers. Tier C: industry self-reported statistics, but the standard reference for historical cable penetration. NOTE: The 1990s cable fact previously cited this source with a '~60%' figure that could not be verified against the NCTA timeline PDF; it has since been corrected to cite FCC 97-423 (59.3%, Tier A). No fact currently cites this source for 1990s data.
Where this source appears
1 records across 1 decades and countries. Documented gaps are included; a source cited for a gap does not establish a value.
0 of 1 records have a current source audit. A transcription check reads a declared numeric field from a pinned local source file; a calculation replay reads its operands and applies the declared method and rounding rule. A source audit does not independently validate the source or every claim in a record. The date is the last successful local audit; the build checks that its bindings still match.