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Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stoctrash who wrote (24348)	10/24/1997 3:15:00 PM
From: John	Respond to of 50808

IMO, Branding can work for only a select few that have demonstrated a superior product history, coupled with high consumer recognition. Unfortuantely, DVD is so new the consumer doesn't have anything to base their decision on yet. Plus, branding is very expensive and really only works once you have already established yourself in the consumers mind. I forgot what percentage of the advertising is paid for by Intel for all those great "Intel Inside" logos, but it isn't cheap. Cube already has a great postion with the "wins" announced. Now, it is in the hands of the advertising and marketing people to move the products off the shelfs. IMO, they need to bundle software/movies with all DVD PC and settop box sales. Slick TV commercials are badly needed. What I've seen to date is boring. The one thing that comes to mind is "Apple's" famous commercial shown only once during (superbowl?)when they debuted their new computers. That created a lot of attention and awareness to the "New Reveloution" in technology. Also, the whole DVD industry should be buring up the PR angle so that the consumer is more aware of the reveloution about to come. Back at ya....John

To: Stoctrash who wrote (24348)	10/24/1997 3:42:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

Kirch owns Soccer. PowerTV can provide net access on just a set top box................ mediacentral.com Soccer Must Stay On Free TV, Germany Tells Kirch Soccer is a matter of national importance, claimed Germany's state prime ministers Thursday in response to countrywide clamor to keep broadcast of the World Cup Championships on network television. The politicians came to the decision to fight for free airing of all Cup soccer games played by Germany just weeks after industry executives and government officials agreed to broadcast just the opening game, semifinals and finals of the sport's biggest event. At the crux of this heated situation lies the sale of worldwide soccer broadcasting rights by international soccer association FIFA to the Kirch Group and marketing partner ISL. Kirch is headed by Bavarian media mogul Leo Kirch, who has made pay TV his business and compares easily to U.S.-based Rupert Murdoch or Italy's Silvio Berlusconi. According to the deal, Kirch has exclusive rights to air both the 2002 and 2006 World Cup games. Only since 1984 has Germany had any commercial television at all; the three networks ZDF, ARD and WDR are government-funded. When soccer air time was bought up and what Germans consider as essential to their culture as beer and Beethoven was to become a privilege, emotions ran high. The backlash forced an Oct. 9 meeting at which the current compromise was met. Now, politicians vowed to win back more public soccer viewing. However, the government stations will find it very difficult to come up with the high fees even if Kirch and cohorts do consider waiving exclusivity. Private companies have driven up broadcasting prices considerably and German programming does not feature commercials after 8 p.m. -- a regulation that is taken very seriously and is unlikely to change anytime soon. Kirch, meanwhile, is sitting in the catbird's seat, for Germany is not the only country that grows passionate about these cleats and kickoffs. The World Cup is the largest international sports event and fans from Brazil to Holland to Bulgaria will hardly want to miss out. (Rikki McGinty) <Picture: red line> Web Data, TV Programming Married in New System (Cable World) PowerTV Inc. says it has developed technology that simultaneously and synchronously delivers HTML data with broadcast audio and video to standard TV sets via an embedded application in cable, satellite, terrestrial and telco set-top boxes. The technology displays Web-like clickable icons on-screen while the current broadcast program continues in the background. Viewers can navigate and select using their remote controls. Content providers can pull existing data from their Web sites and the PowerTV system automatically tailors it for the television display. Source Media Inc. says it can enable customers to access the Internet via a remote control and industry-standard digital and analog set-tops through its Interactive Channel software.