INTEL CHMN. GROVE: DON'T RELY ON 'NONEXISTENT' DTV SETS
06/14/1999
AUDIO WEEK
(c) Copyright 1999 Warren Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
DTV's immediate future is in PCs, not expensive new TV sets, Intel Chmn. Andrew Grove told annual Public Bcstg. Service conference in San Francisco last week.
Grove used session to announce expansion of Intel's collaboration with PBS to provide enhanced content over digital airwaves. PBS officials promised to be delivering 24-hour enhanced content by next summer to stations in all digital feeds. Computers are "easiest, cheapest, fastest way to reach 50 million homes with DTV signals," Grove said, and allow TV industry to avoid "chicken-and-egg" problem of developing content that's received by very few at outset.
Broadcasters also must see themselves as potential "dark horse" winner in race to provide broadband access to homes, along with cable and phone companies, Grove said. If they count on spread of DTV sets, he said, they will "hobble that dark horse by tying it to nonexistent receivers." DTV can transmit 19 Mbps of data, he said, and broadcasters "need to figure out ways of exploiting that." While computer chip and TV set manufacturers have lowered prices drastically in last few years and will continue to do so, Grove said, broadband access rates haven't followed suit and won't begin to without competition. "Right now, [Internet access] is more expensive than the hardware," he said.
Grove dismissed suggestions that copyright and other legal concerns would slow movement of intellectual property to Internet. "Technology is like water," he said. "It finds a way." He said that will "make life very difficult" for media companies, each of which is at "either the beginning of the decline, or the beginning of your institution's rise to a new level." PTV industry has shown "good signs" of being able to make transition to digital, Grove said, including award-winning PBS Online Web site. That's "good start," he said, but "only a start."
PBS said it will begin airing enhanced TV (ETV) programs under Intel partnership in April. It also pledged to provide tools for stations and other producers to create their own ETV content for PCs. Senior Counsel Robert Ottenhoff said PBS will hold Digital Week 2 in Nov., coinciding with next FCC on-air deadline and PBS's 30th anniversary: "We can make a strong statement about our future even as we celebrate our past." Events will include HDTV "doubleheader" Nov. 3. By then, PBS hopes to see 10 more stations broadcasting digital along with 7 that started last Nov., raising digital coverage to 26% of households. Network's next ETV programming will be Wonders of the African World, miniseries featuring Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates that premieres in Oct.
Stations were urged at conference to step up pace of digital conversion and to experiment with DTV production, even if staff doesn't fully understand process. "Don't worry about mistakes," said Ore. Public Bcstg. Pres. Maynard Orme at breakout session. "Nobody's watching now, anyway."
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