Jefferson Cable Corporation collection

The Jefferson Cable Corporation was founded by Robert Monroe (1915–1995) in 1963 to serve Charlottesville as well as Waynesboro, Virginia, 40 miles to the west over the Blue Ridge Mountains. Monroe had an extensive radio production background, moved into managing radio stations in North Carolina and Virginia, and became intrigued by the developing market for cable television systems. Monroe is an unusual figure in that his passion outside of broadcasting was the exploration of human consciousness—he popularized the term “out of body experience” and experimented extensively with attempting to alter brain patterns via sound. He would go on to sell the station in 1975, founding The Monroe Institute in nearby Nelson County, Virginia to focus full time on such research.

As in other areas where topographical variation limited the ability to reliably receive broadcast television signals, this early community antenna system gained a healthy pool of subscribers. We know their subscriber base exceeded 3,500 subscribers at the time of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) 1969 ruling that cable stations of this size would be required to provide some locally originating programming, rather than simply aggregating the content of other stations. Production of local origination content began at the station's 324 West Main Street studio in Charlottesville in 1970 with the launch of the station WJCC 11. The videotapes in this collection are predominantly recordings of this local origination programming.

In 1993, Adelphia Communications purchased the existing cable system, and the tape library and equipment were salvaged by collection donor Steve Ashby.

Sources:

Stockton, B. 1989. Catapult: The biography of Robert A. Monroe. Norfolk, Virginia: The Donning Company.

https://www.charlottesville.gov/195/CPA-TV