Cable companies used to just pull in the local feed, and push that out over their network. The local broadcasters called foul, and got Congress to enact a law (1992 Cable Act) that required cable companies to obtain permission to rebroadcast these public signals.[0][1] This quickly resulted in broadcasters charging ever increasing rates to deliver their content to their own viewers.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retransmission_consent
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_Television_Consumer_Prot...
