... and more channels.

In the dawn of time, also known as my childhood, there were 2 channels. Then 3. TV's had dials and it was my job, like so many other youngest children, to turn them. Then cable came and there were a lot of channels. So many channels you needed the newspaper's TV schedule to figure out what to watch. No more flipping between 2 or 3 channels hoping for something better. Planned viewing had arrived. No more sitting by the TV, spinning through channels, and getting clouted for spinning to fast because you'll break it! And finally, freeing children everywhere from the tyranny of the dial, remote control! No longer chained to the TV, children could return to lounging on the comfy family room chesterfields.

Never forget that cable, and the TV remotes it spawned, freed millions of children from spinning TV dials!

I think you're too quick to discredit the claim, perhaps its not quite as strong as people make it seem but... This article written in 1981 from the NY times titled "Will Cable TV Be Invaded By Commercials" would somewhat disagree with you. I think makes the situation as clear to understand as possible:

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

People were assuming because they were paying for Television there would be no (or at least less) ads. The article then states that there was $45 million in cable advertising vs $11 billion in traditional. I think those numbers alone make it pretty clear advertising was not at the top of the (at the time) nascent industry's mind. And, while this is only a guess its probably safe to assume the bulk of that $45 million went to at most a handful of "innovative" (vomits in mouth) cable companies.

I think there is confusion with the original (very large) satellite dish services. Those were marketed as ad-free.

Ads were part of cable and satellite TV from the start, but they have "invaded" more recently in the menus.