A large number of premium, cable-exclusive channels were at one point. Broadcast channels weren't, but that wasn't a disadvantage, and those premium channels brought a lot to the table.

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/26/arts/will-cable-tv-be-inv...

Those few premium channels that you paid extra for on top of your regular cable build were ad free and still are.

Some of them are, especially movie-related ones, but special interest and news channels generally run ads now. This also isn't really relevant to my point and I never said that cable used to be ad-free, but rather that there used to be a more prominent attraction to it due to some ad-free content offerings.

I remember when cable first came to my city. They marketed it heavily as being an ad-free alternative to broadcast TV. That was not a myth.

Cable TV was first created to deliver broadcast TV. Where do you think all of the content came from? Second run syndication of broadcast TV supported by advertising and premium channels that you paid extra for. It wasn’t until maybe 15 years ago that cable channels started producing their own non reality content.