The first cable TV systems were Community Antenna TV systems. 

For the first 25 years of the industry's existence, broadcast retransmission (especially distant stations), was about the only thing they had to sell.  Many systems originated local programming ("local origination") and carried PEG (public, educational and government) access programming, but these services didn't sell many subscriptions.

The term CATV originally stood for Community Antenna TV.  Somewhere around the mid-70s, when CATV companies began carrying satellite-delivered non-broadcast programming, the term CATV morphed into Cable TV.

By the way, do you know what ESPN stands for?

It doesn't stand for anything.

But the story is, when ESPN started in 1979, they called themselves the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (thus, ESPN). However, the full name was dropped in February, 1985, when the company adopted a new corporate name - ESPN, Inc. - and a new logo. Based in Bristol, CT., 80 percent of ESPN is owned by ABC, Inc., which is an indirect subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. The Hearst Corporation holds the remaining 20 percent interest in ESPN.

Since we're on acronyms, do you know what DOCSIS stands for?

Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS), is an international telecommunications standard that permits the addition of high-speed data transfer to an existing cable TV (CATV) system. It is employed by many cable television operators to provide Internet access over their existing hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) infrastructure.

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