Over the air broadcast TV provided great value to consumers (and still does -- lets me watch local TV without needing to buy cable). The problem with broadcast

Over the air broadcast TV provided great value to consumers (and still does -- lets me watch local TV without needing to buy cable). The problem with broadcast TV is that the technology at the time meant that the spectrum had to be dedicated to TV and can't easily be phased out for other uses -- the cutover to digital TV was a huge ordeal. That's no longer the case, different users can share the same spectrum today.