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

To: Stoctrash who wrote (36753)	10/15/1998 2:22:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

If you send a digital signal, and nobody watches it, did you really send a digital signal?(No one will know, if you send a poor quality signal).............................................. mediacentral.com TV Digital Countdown Lacks One Component: Actual TV Viewers By Eric Glick Broadcasters' plans to offer digital service beginning next month may be all for naught until consumers have the means to receive a digital signal. Indeed, as broadcasters unveiled a plan to start offering some digital programming a bit ahead of schedule, some cable operators said they wouldn't be able to carry the signal for some time. For example, WBNS-TV, a CBS affiliate in Columbus, Ohio, was one of 42 stations to announce last week that it would begin offering digital service in November. However, neither cable operator that serves Columbus offers digital channels, so the only viewers that will be able to receive the signal must own costly and scarce HDTV sets. "We do not (offer digital service) today," said Mary Jo Green, a spokesman for Time Warner Cable's Columbus system. Green wouldn't speculate on when the cable operator might begin digital offerings. Insight Communications, which recently purchased a system from Coaxial Communications in Columbus, is also presently unable to carry a digital signal, according to its general manager Greg Graff. Even if a cable system had the capacity to offer a broadcaster's digital signal, Graff said, it "would need to free up bandwidth. In a vast majority of cases, they don't have it." At a splashy event on Oct. 6 at the National Association of Broadcasters headquarters in Washington, D.C., four broadcasters -- representing a total of 42 -- announced their plans to launch digital service ahead of schedule. "Broadcasters are meeting their digital pledge" to offer the service on time, said Chuck Sherman, NAB's executive VP. But they'll be doing so in many markets without the help of cable operators. In fact, according to some sources, broadcasters haven't even been in discussions with local MSOs about how or when they would be offering digital. Insight's Graff said his company has had "general discussions" with representatives from WBNS, but no specific talks about plans to launch digital next month. And a source at Time Warner said WBNS has "not contacted us at all about their digital plans." The lack of communication points to the general discord between broadcasters, the cable industry and the manufacturing community over the best way to roll out digital. The broadcasters accuse cable of acting as a "bottleneck" to delivering crisp, sharp local signals and charge the manufacturers with delaying the availability of reasonably-priced digital equipment. NAB president Eddie Fritts wrote National Cable Television Association president-CEO Decker Anstrom a letter last week urging NCTA members "to carry local digital signals." The fight between broadcasters and cable operators essentially boils down to whether MSOs are obligated under a new set of must-carry rules to carry both an analog and a digital signal until all broadcasters offer digital and give back their analog spectrum. The cable industry is expected to vigorously oppose such a move in comments it files this week at the FCC. For his part, Anstrom fired a letter back to Fritts last week, saying, "the transition from analog to digital is an evolutionary, complex process that will take time to work out and is best resolved by the marketplace, not the government." But the evolution seems to be at a standstill if last week's events are any indication. Without cable to carry the local digital signal, broadcasters won't reach more about 66% of homes in their local market. It's unclear, however, which cable systems in the 42 markets that plan to go digital next month plan to carry the signal. A cable marketing expert who requested anonymity said last week that broadcasters may be going ahead with digital without cable carriage as a ploy to give consumers an incentive to lobby their local operators for digital service. Such a move, known as "pull-through" marketing, is practiced in the cable industry all the time, as when a programmer tells customers to call their local operator to carry their service. The technique, the source said, could get customers to say, "Wouldn't it be great if I could get this signal through my cable box?" (October 12, 1998)