Cable television has been introduced to the public as a revolutionary development in communications, but its history, evolving structure, and present operation indicate otherwise. A few large industrial conglomerates have come to dominate the field of cable television and studies by private institutions and the regulatory activities of the Federal Communications Commission have further encouraged corporate rather than public control of the medium. Cable has thus come to be regarded as a technical instrument capable of generating financial profits, rather than as a social instrument which can be used for the public welfare. Unless the public becomes aware of and reverses these trends, public access to the reception and transmission of information will remain limited, and community control and local origination of programing will be impossible. (PB)