To: Jeff Carroll who wrote (2511 ) 8/18/1998 12:02:00 AM From: ed doell Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 4748
I'm still waiting for Frank to PM me the phone numbers. I'm willing to elaborate when I find out. I don't get it. When this stock was $1.75 or so, everyone was hunkered down for the long haul and reasonable and reasonably optimistic. Now there's all this dissing and slicing hairs. What up about that? Ed BTW, something from YAHOO's tdot46 "On SI Hausser mentions actv on basic and now Croatty here on Yahoo. It seems like a logical assumption when you consider a couple of comments management has made in print interviews re interactive advertising and the general picture in the news re advertising dollars where the 3 major networks and cable are battling tooth and nail over ad revs. First the MSO's want to increase revs and are almost precluded from any significant rev increase from simply raising cable rates as they are controlled and will likely stay controlled with new legislation in the spring when the current controls expire. Besides that what minimal rate increases they can get approved will probably not even begin to cover the soaring program costs and the infrastructure build out costs. So they look to the real gold in cable now and that's advertising revs. What better source of revs to increase than the high margin product of advertising. Interactive commercials are just the tech needed to lure even more advertisers away from the 3 traditional networks. I was concerned at first with the Sea Change alliance with GI until I understood their tech and how it complements actv. SC does seamless video insertion of taped video products stored on library server sysytem into the video stream. SC product ranges from movies to commercials. Actv allows interactivity from viewer with the flash memory for demographics and financials (as in credit cards/debit accounts, etc.) Now if MSO's put the two together perfect mechanism to sell pay per view and home shopping without telephone hassles, just click remote. Also, perfect mechanism for advertisers to target certain demographic cable subscribers with an interactive commercial. That is, a GM commercial can be offered to various households and the viewer with a click selects a specific product from the GM line which is the delivered by SC, just as they would deliver movies and other video product. Advertisers will crush each other in a stampede to this type of product that would greatly enhance and maximize the return of their advertising dollars. Now in conlusion, for MSO's to maximize this cash cow they need it on all channels. That is available for all commercial time available not just the commercials on FXS. So they make actv/SC tech available on basic for commercials and actv enhanced sports viewing tech on FXS which may or may not be on basic. It also, of course, makes actv available for transactions on all channels for home shopping whether from a shopping channel or from interactive direct sell commercial ( as in records, CD's) on any and all channels. So there you have it! Actv should be on basic or we and they are missing the boat. Downside here is this almost certainly requires a much greater digital build out to reach a critial mass for implementation. Consequently, I further presume and suspect actv will roll out on FXS on a premium channel basis and then later integrated with flip of a digital switch after the advertising digital build out critical mass is reached. So incredibly this is like the best of both worlds as in having your cake and eating it too. Pretty darned easy to see why some people strongly feel actv will be bought out. See Gorenstein recent posts and Cohens late 1997 posts on SI. If know TCI(Hindrey), GI, Liberty Media, and so on I'm sure they're figuring "why share" this cash cow when we can have it all right now before it ever comes to fruition and people realize the true worth. Of course, actv and Samuels do, but can they really be expected to hold off this kind of outcome from the giants of cable industry regardless of the "poison pill" actv has established. No price will be too great. I think we are all TCI/GI/Liberty Media shareholders by 12/31."