From: roby@chopin.udel.edu (Scott W Roby)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.current
Subject: Re: Will we have to pay to see Star Trek?
Date: 6 Oct 92 14:26:45 GMT
Organization: University of Delaware

In article <16877EF86.IQTI400@INDYCMS.IUPUI.EDU> IQTI400@INDYCMS.IUPUI.EDU (macphil) writes:
>In article <Bvnt7E.1K8@news.udel.edu>
>roby@chopin.udel.edu (Scott W Roby) writes:
> 
>>What I want to know is:  If broadcast stations can operate only
>>on advertiser revenue and not need customer revenue then why can't
>>the same thing be done with cable (excluding the traditional
>>commercial-free pay channels - HBO, atc.)?  After all, virtually all the
>>channels I currently get on my cable system carry commercials.
> 
>>Sure it would be extra cost to the advertising budgets of companies,
>>but that's what happened when radio and tv first came into use --
>>the advertising budget had to be expanded from only print to
>>cover the new media as well.
> 
>So what you are proposing is that you'd receive some subset of cable for
>free such that the advertisers pay for it and you essentially receive
>cable instead of "wireless" as you do now?

Well, actually I have been paying for cable for ten years.  

But this thread got me to thinking about free broadcast TV again and 
how it came about.  It dawned on me that if broadcast TV could make 
a profit without directly billing the customer, then why couldn't 
the same be true of cable carrying only commercial channels and 
government funded channels (CSPAN, etc)?
 
I enjoy cable service.  (TNT, USA, NICK, LIFETIME, A&E, AMC, are all worth 
it.)  But all these channels show commercials (local and national).  It 
used to be that the revenue for commercials on a SINGLE station could 
make a broadcast station profitable.  I don't see why the revenue for 
commercials on 40+ channels can't make a cable company profitable.
Heck, I would think those obnoxious half-hour infomercials 
and the all-commercial channels (QVC, Home Shopping, etc) could be be 
charged a rate high enough to wipe out basic fees for all cable customers 
and still leave the cable company and the advertising companies a profit.

>>Free (to the consumer) broadcast TV was one of the more marvelous
>>business world innovations of the twentieth century and now it looks to be
>>going the way of the dinosaurs.  Sigh.
> 
>I don't think it'll ever go away (entirely).  It's just the things you
>might be interested in aren't free anymore.  Look at it this way:
>"wireless television" was free essentially because they couldn't figure
>a way to charge for it.  

And yet they found a way (payments for commercial airtime) to make the 
endeavor profitable anyways!  That was the great innovation!

I still don't see why cable couldn't have gone this route.
After all, some shows break for 2-3 minute commercials every 5-7 minutes!
I don't have the numbers handy, but I think commercial time during 
most programming hours has more than doubled during the last 40 years.

>Years ago, it was very easy to "hack" your
>electricity line coming into the house (has to do /c phase-shifting...
>a topic discussed in all first-year electronics courses, as I recall)
>and they figured out a way to keep people from doing that.
> 
>Besides, considering the quality of 90%+ of what's available on cable,
>why should one complain?  I grew up in a rural area sans cable and
>don't feel as though I missed out (necessarily).
 
It's not a major complaint -- it's more of a musing on what might 
have been.  


-- 
Scott W. Roby           *This sentence no verb.*      "No Matter where you go..
Phys.& Astr.Dept.    ///// / /  /  *|*  \  \ \ \\\\\      there you are!"
Univ.of Delaware    ((((( ( (  (  * + *  )  ) ) )))))   -> Buckaroo Banzai
roby@brahms.udel.edu \\\\\ \ \  \  *|*  /  / / /////   *Standard Disclaimer*