The Devil's Doorknob BBS Capture (1996-2003)

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Text File | 1994-03-07 | 47KB | 983 lines

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ "The World's Most Important Publication!" │ ├───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ ████ █ █████ █ █ █████ █████ █████ █████ █████ █████ │ │ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ │ │ █ █ █ █████ █████ █ ████ █ ████ █████ █████ │ │ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ │ │ ████ █ █████ █ █ █████ █████ █ █████ █ ▀█ █ █ │ │ │ │ (C)Copyright 1993 By Dolan & Associates - All Rights Reserved │ ├───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ THE SATELLITE TV INDUSTRY ONLINE MAGAZINE │ ├───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ Volume 6 - Issue # 05 Price:$ 2.95 March 1, 1994 │ ├───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ DISHCETERA Satellite TV Magazine, DISHCETERA - The Satellite │ │ TV Online Magazine, & DISHNEWS are (C)Copyrighted 1993 Dolan │ │ & Associates, Box 189, Bellaire, Texas 77402. All Rights │ │ Reserved. Subscription price is $25.per year pre-payment in │ │ advance in U.S. funds only. Send all subscriptions to │ │ DISHCETERA, Box 189, Bellaire, Texas 77402. │ │ │ │ No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted │ │ by any means, electronic, mechanical, photographic, recording,│ │ or otherwise, without the written permission of the author. │ │ Unauthorized use may result in criminal prosecution, as well │ │ as, civil liability. SysOps may post as a bulletin or file. │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ THIS MONTH'S TOP SATELLITE NEWS STORIES --------------------------------------- ■ VIACOM/PARAMOUNT DEAL ON WHILE TCI/BELL ATLANTIC DEAL OFF ■ FCC TELLS CABLE TV THE RATES WILL STAY THE SAME SOME MORE ■ NCTA ANNOUNCES INTENT TO CHALLENGE NEW REGULATIONS ■ WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH THE SUPERSTATION LEGISLATION? ■ NFL TO OFFER "SEASON TICKET" FOR NFL CHANNEL AND NFL GAMES ■ WHITE HOUSE INTRODUCES SUPERHIGHWAY SURVEILLANCE ACT ■ MIND EXTENTION UNIVERSITY JOINING STARZ USING DIGICIPHER ■ TCI/MICROSOFT JOINT VENTURE PLANS INTERACTIVE TV TESTS ■ HDTV ADVISORY COMMITTEE SELECTS ZENITH SYSTEM - NOT GI ■ WISCONSIN ORDERS TIME-WARNER TO STOP NEGATIVE BILLINGS ■ JAZZ FANS WILL HAVE A CHOICE OF TWO JAZZ CABLE CHANNELS ■ TIME-WARNER ANNOUNCES DELAY OF FULL SERVICE NETWORK TESTS ■ THE MONTHLY "STATE-OF-THE-DBS" REPORT... THE HYPE CONTINUES ■ WHAT'S HAPPENING ACROSS THE HOME DISH SKYS THIS MONTH ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ VIACOM/PARAMOUNT DEAL ON WHILE TCI/BELL ATLANTIC DEAL OFF │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ This is really old news to most folks by now but for anyone who may have been visiting another planet the last couple of days and didn't hear, Viacom did finally outbid QVC and will now merge with Paramount. Viacom paid a high price and they will have to borrow billions more than originally planned to buy Paramount. Paramount owns a film studio, Simon & Schuster books, Madison Square Garden and two New York sports teams. Paramount and Viacom agreed in September on an $8.2 billion cash and stock merger that included about $1.1 billion in cash. The final price is about $10 billion in cash and stock, including $6.6 billion in cash. Meanwhile, the mega-deal of the century between TCI, the world's largest cable operator and Bell Atlantic, the deal that would have replaced two huge monopolies with one huge monopoly, has been called-off. The parties couldn't agree upon the price but they would like you to be real stupid and think the FCC's cable rate freeze had something to do with it. It didn't - Bell Atlantic stock wasn't worth quite as much as they thought it would be, and TCI's revenues weren't quite as high as they claimed them to be... they simply couldn't agree on the price. We're all better off this deal fell apart as we don't need anymore giant monopolies to offer us their idea of a good deal. I'm sure we can look forward to TCI merging with somebody, at some future date for even more money. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ FCC TELLS CABLE TV THE RATES WILL STAY THE SAME SOME MORE │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Maybe the good guys win one this time. The FCC has once again told the cable industry that the rates were supposed to go down instead of going up as was the case with many subscribers. The FCC has announced that the rate freeze will continue for the third time. The FCC has announced cost-of-service rules that will allow 11.25% rate-of-return after taxes and is ordering cable companies to cut the prices they charge for programs and equipment. The 7% reduction should affect 90% of America's cable television subscribers. The FCC unanimously approved the new rate cuts ten months after ordering a 10% rate reduction that backfired for some consumers. The new rate cut is expected to take effect during May. The FCC says they are just trying to do what Congress told them to do and Congress told them to reduce cable rates. And, that's that - they're going to reduce the rates. They're not too sure exactly what will work and what won't but they're going to try something - if that doesn't work they'll try something else. "If the subscribers look at what they were buying in September of 1992, the price will have gone down one-sixth when the new rates go into effect," FCC Chairman Reed Hundt said. That would mean a subscriber who in September of 1992 paid $25 a month for a package that includes local broadcast, government and public access channels plus basic services could expect to pay $21 a month when the new rates go into effect. Hundt said consumers are expected to save $3 billion once the second rate cut goes into effect. He said that the combined 17% reduction "one of the most significant consumer benefits in the history of federal regulation." (The 17% is the total of the previous 10% rate reduction added to the new 7% rate reduction.) As usual, the cable guys are going to sue. The Community Antenna TV Association and InterMedia Partners have announced that they will go to federal court in hopes of overturning the FCC freeze on cable rates. The National Cable Television Association has also indicated they would go to court to do something about the FCC rules. Other new rules approved will give the commission broader powers to take action if they find that a cable company has tried to avoid the rate cuts by re-tiering or re-packaging it's basic channels and/or by changing the way it bills for services. The FCC has also announced that the deadline for filing an official cable tv rate complaint has passed and they will not be accepting any more complaints about basic cable rates. You can still file a complaint about "expanded basic rates". What happens if you filed a complaint and the FCC doesn't do anything about it? I guess you're just out of luck. The FCC says it's looking-into the complaints but they're still way under-staffed and it's going to take a while to examine the rate structures of each cable company. So many of the complaints are cases where the cable company yanked a batch of channels off their basic service level and now claims those channels are an ala carte offering. Under certain circumstances, the ala carte packages are permitted but not if the end result was simply to cause a rate increase. New channels can be offered ala carte. To date, local regulatory authorities responsible for 7,534 communities have filed requests to be certified to regulate cable rates in their areas while some 2,000 complaints have been received from other communities. The FCC reports that leaves about 20,000 communities with no complaints or requests to be able to regulate rates. That means those folks are "happy" with cable tv rates in those communities. You know, it sure would be nice to have a list of those so-called 20,000 happy communities so somebody could find out why they were happy. I bet we'll never see THAT list. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ NCTA ANNOUNCES INTENT TO CHALLENGE NEW REGULATIONS │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ The National Cable Television Association will spearhead the battle against new rate regulations instituted by the FCC on February 22. NCTA president, Decker Anstrom, said," simple business economics tell us that additional government-mandated revenue cuts will damage the cable industry's ability to invest in new technology and programming and to create new jobs. While many of the details of these new regulations are still missing, the FCC chairman predicted they will reduce industry revenues by a total of $3 billion. No industry of our size can withstand that sort of financial hit without serious consequences," continued Mr. Anstrom. The NCTA, also led the initial challenge to the cable act reregulating the industry, has filed an appeal of the original October rate cut order citing First Amendment considerations. "When you regulate the rates of a First Amendment entity and affect content, that raises questions," he explained. The court has already ruled against the NCTA on these questions. Since the original filing, Time-Warner and other cable operators have also joined lawsuits. Meanwhile, the City of Austin, Texas has filed it's own lawsuit claiming the new rules do not go far enough. The FCC has up to thirty days to publish the new rules and regulations in the Federal Register and at that time, the NCTA will ask the courts to stay the rate cuts. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH THE SUPERSTATION LEGISLATION? │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ The deal is... the current legislation which allows anyone to steal local broadcast signals, encrypt them and then re-sell them to home dish owners is about to expire. And, the high-dollar's guys doing the stealing, encrypting and re-selling want to keep doing it. It seems to me that's THEIR problem - they have a lot more money than the home dish owners do and they're the ones who're getting all the money from the sale of the signals. If there really IS going to be a problem, they're the ones who created it in the first place... let them spend THEIR money and get THEIR problem fixed. Okay, for all you folks who just fell off a turnip truck and weren't around way back when, when all the superstations were un-scrambled and anyone with a satellite dish could receive them for free... I'll give you a little background on this. Once upon a time, there was a little independent station in Atlanta called WTCG-TV owned by a fellow named Ted Turner. The station was a "loser" and Ted had this brainstorm that if he was able to uplink his station to a satellite, then every cable tv system would be able to get it and maybe he could get some more audience. Of course, there's a little hitch in the plan, licensed broadcast stations are not allowed to uplink their signals. If they were, dish owners would now have probably a 100 or so to choose from and they would all be unscrambled and in direct competition with each other. But, it's against the law so they can't do it and everyone's saddled with paying for advertiser-supported free television because of a stupid FCC rule. Since Ted couldn't uplink his signal legally, he created a subsidiary called Southern Satellite Systems to uplink the signal for him. Licensed as a common-carrier, S.S.S. was only allowed to receive the signal with a regular off-the-air tv antenna and not alter or interfere with it's transmission in any way, and simply deliver the signal to cable tv headends. That was fine until the price of satellite systems dropped to the point where home owners could afford their own system. As home dish sales increased, prices for the systems dropped and in turn caused more sales. Suddenly, the cable industry noticed that satellite dish dealers were telling folks "why pay for cable when you can get it all free"; at this point HBO promised to make the sky go dark and TCI announced they wouldn't pay for any channels that weren't scrambled. Suddenly, Eastern Microwave, the common-carrier for WOR-TV in New York encrypted the signal using the Videocipher II, the same system that was then being used by HBO, the only other scrambled "cable tv" signal on satellite. The common-carrier's for WGN-TV and WTCG-TV scrambled those signals shortly thereafter. Since this "interference" with a common-carrier signal is a violation of FCC rules and the FCC received several thousand complaints about this, the FCC should have told the various common-carriers involved to obey the law and unscramble their signals. Instead, the FCC didn't do anything about these violations and allowed the industry to seek legislation that changed the rules. At this point legislation was introduced that allowed the common-carriers to scramble the signals and market them to home dish owners provided the necessary copyright fees were collected from home dish owners. Similar legislation allows cable systems to carry superstations but the S.B.C.A. objected to legislation that would give the home dish industry the same opportunity. The outcome of this was that legislation was passed allowing home dish owners to get the superstations... but only for a limited period of time. While cable systems can continue carrying the superstations forever, the legislation "sunsets" for home dish subscribers at the end of this year. The only reason the legislation "sunsets" or ends at the end of this year is because the S.B.C.A. insisted on this. There are no satellite dish dealer members or home dish consumer members of the S.B.C.A. who can vote on these issues. The only S.B.C.A. members who had any say about this were cable industry members, and the cable industry wanted to obstruct dish sales any way they could. So, at the end of this year the law "sunsets". What does that mean if you currently subscribe to any of the superstations? The truth is we don't know what that means. The common-carriers were marketing their signals to home dish owners in violation of the law before the current law was passed and there's no reason to believe that these same common-carriers won't be marketing their signals to dish owners in violation of the law after the end of the year when the legislation "sunsets. It's simply a non-issue and the S.B.C.A. would like everyone to devote their energy to this instead of the "real" issue. So, what's the "real" issue? What is it they don't want you to talk about or think about? If we're going to pass some legislation so home dish owners can get some superstations, let's pass some legislation that would allow home dish owners to get ALL the stations... let's let the broadcasters uplink their own signals. What's the point of re-newing legislation that intentionally will limit the number of available choices - it's time to let everyone join the "information superhighway". If local broadcasters are allowed to uplink their signals and compete with each other they have no reason to scramble their signals, it's to their advantage to get their signals to as many viewers as possible and that would mean lots of "free tv" for home dish owners - don't tell your Senators this! Here's the plan. Everyone wants home dish owners to contact their United States Senators and enlist their support for S1485 which is due-up for discussion shortly. Most of the Senators aren't familiar with the legislation or are familiar, but not getting any input from consumers. So, when you call to ask for their support, tell them "to remove the cable roadblock" and allow broadcast stations to uplink their signals too. Say you want everyone to join the "information superhighway" so you'll have access to everyone's viewpoint. Make sure your Senator understands that you don't want JUST the "cable channels" and the "cable viewpoint". Remember, support S1485 and "remove the cable roadblock!" As usual, the number to call in Washington is 202-224-3121, just ask for your particular state if you don't know who your Senator is and they'll connect you. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ NFL TO OFFER "SEASON TICKET" FOR NFL CHANNEL AND NFL GAMES │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Starting this next season the NFL plans on all backhauls of all games to either be on Vyvx or encrypted using Leitch. If you want to see the games here are your options. a. You can watch your local FOX TV station (if you have a local FOX TV station) via your rooftop antenna for free. b. You can watch your local NBC station (if you have a local NBC station) via your rooftop antenna for free. c. You can subscribe to T-N-T (where available) and watch the games that they'll carry if they're not blacked-out in your area. d. You can subscribe to E.S.P.N. (if it's not blacked-out) and watch the games they carry. e. Buy an NFL "season ticket" and watch the NFL CHANNEL. Option E, the NFL CHANNEL available by their "season ticket" is the NFL's idea of sucking more money out of the same old stuff. THEY describe it a "little" different. The NFL plans to create an NFL CHANNEL that will be available mainly to sportsbars and tavern who have been stealing the games and showing them to their customers in violation of the law. I guess the NFL figures if you can't beat then join them and make lots of money at the same time. The channel will also be made available to home satellite dish owners but the price is way out of line. It may be a wonderful idea and you can't fault the NFL for trying to squeeze some more money out of the same old stuff, it just won't work. At least, not if they're planning on selling this to the sportsbars. The sportsbars have been showing the games illegally and we all know this but they generally show ALL the games - not just a single game. The NFL is talking about a single channel with only a couple of the games - this will never sell to sportsbars and selling it to home dish subscribers is going to be pretty tough too. Then, there's the price... $125. for a "season ticket". Of course, all the details on this have not been worked-out yet and will be the main subject of discussion when the owners meet in April. Everybody will have to vote to approve everything and there's bound to be at least several teams that won't be happy with the end results. What effect this will have on the final plans for the channel remain to be seen. Remember this, a camel is a horse that was designed by a committee. The NFL CHANNEL will be a programming service designed by a committee. With all the backhauls encrypted using Leitch technology and the NBC and FOX TV primary feeds also being encrypted, a home dish owner who doesn't live near an over-the-air affiliate is going to be stuck with whatever T-N-T and ESPN are showing and in most cases, that won't be the home team. Even if the local game is sold-out 72 hours in advance and the local station will be able to broadcast it, where does that leave dish owners who can't get a local station? Watching the "national" games that they really don't want to see - who's going to pay for that? I sincerely hope that Major Leaugue Baseball isn't going to try to get their BASEBALL CHANNEL on the air this season and will wait a year and see what happens with the NFL. >>>>SPECIAL NOTICE: This data has been checked against three independent sources and all of it has been confirmed. Complaints about this can be directed to NFL ENTERPRISES but I doubt if it will do any good and will simply waste your time. Complaints would get more attention if directed to major advertisers. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ WHITE HOUSE INTRODUCES SUPERHIGHWAY SURVEILLANCE ACT │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ In an effort to make the "information superhighway" an investigative arm of the government, both the Justice Dept. and the FBI have created legislation that will filter everyone's private communications through their massive computer systems for routine, day-to-day examination. This legislation is likely to set off fireworks in Congress as the law enforcement sector tries to make everything easy and warrant-free and everyone else attempts to preserve their Constitutionally protected rights, The White House is trying to keep this legislation quiet as long as possible but copies of the draft rules are being widely circulated. In the draft legislation, the administration defines a "common carrier" ANY NETWORK OR PROVIDER that carries voice or data, including telephone, cable, computer and other firms, and says the FBI can require the common carrier to deliver contents of message and call setup information to remote government sites for routine examination. The legislation would require a court order before the FBI could install a wiretap but the agency would not need to get a court order to track an individual's activity on the network. Jerry Berman, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in Washington, said he was "not happy. This is a potential blueprint for an electronic surveillance society." The Electronic Freedom Foundation is leading a coalition of civil-liberties groups and industry members opposing this legislation. This legislation is similar to a bill the Bush administration proposed in 1992 but dropped when opponents made its contents known to the computer using public. The legislation would give the attorney general the power to demand that all communications equipment be designed to guarantee non-privacy so that investigators would automatically have access to it, and would empower the attorney general to impose a $10,000 a day fine for anyone who failed to comply or the government could simply shut down your communications systems if you failed to comply with it's requests for access. According to FBI Director Louis J. Freeh, the FBI will be unable to protect the country against terrorism, violent crime, foreign threats, drug trafficking, espionage, and any other crime he can think of, unless the FBI is allowed to access and read everyone's private electronic mail. The FBI says it is troubled by all the new technology developments... Quite frankly, I'm much more troubled by the FBI and this proposed legislation than by any possible crimes that may be committed. If you're also troubled by this incredible piece of crap legislation, the number to call is: 202-224-3121. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ ADVERTISEMENT - ADVERTISEMENT - ADVERTISEMENT │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ All the services you want, can be found 24 hours a day on the National Videotex Network - NVN. As you are evaluating alternative services, please consider NVN. Quality, great selection and COMPETITIVE RATES are what NVN is all about. A network membership, including use of over 80 Basic services, is a FLAT $5.95 per month. Premium services are priced at low connect time rates of just $3.00/hr. non-prime (6pm-8am*) and $8.00/hr. for prime time (8am - 6pm*). And, these same great rates apply whether you call NVN at 1200, 2400 or even 9600 baud! [Some services may also carry additional surcharges and/or transaction fees.] And, NVN offers an ever increasing number of services to suit almost any interest. Enjoy lots of forums with discussion topics ranging from finance and computing to gardening and astrology. Communication between members continues 24 hours a day with instant message posting. COMMUNICATE WITH OTHER FORUM MEMBERS IN THE MESSAGE BASES AT NO EXTRA CHARGE. Or, choose the Basic Email or Premium "live" Chat club service for even more round the clock communication. Get global news and sports coverage from the nation's ten largest wire services. Take advantage of the low connect charges to download valuable information in the numerous databases available. Challenge your strategic and creative skills with interactive and multi-player games like the Island Of Kesmai(TM). Stay in step with business and financial services including stock quotes, currencies, commodities, market news and information from reference sources like Dun & Bradstreet and TRW. Other services include shopping, travel information and reservations, an encyclopedia and much more... To order by phone or for more information call NVN at 1-800- 336-9096 (voice) Monday - Friday 8am - 10:00pm and weekends Noon - 8pm. All hours indicated are Central time zone. When visiting NVN please drop by the SATELLITE, CABLE & CONSUMER ELECTRONICS FORUM and say hello; it's a local call from most major cities at no additional connect charges. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ MIND EXTENTION UNIVERSITY JOINING STARZ USING DIGICIPHER │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Beginning in July, ME/U - Mind Extention University - will "transition" to DigiCipher I. ME/U will begin transmitting four individual educational feeds including their Jones Computer Network. The compressed feeds will be transmitted on SatCom C3 #20 and ME/U will switch to DigiCipher II in early 1995 when those units become available in quantity. Until the Jones Computer Network is firmly established, ME/U will continue to air their block of programming on Galaxy 5 #21 where it reaches 21 million current cable homes. ME/U joins SCOLA, PBS, HBO, VIACOM, VIEWER'S CHOICE, REQUEST TV, PRIMESTAR, NEBRASKA PUBLIC TV, and STARZ, in moving to compressed technology using DigiCipher I. All will switch to the MPEG-2 compatable DigiCipher II system in early 1995. STARZ is a premium movie service owned by TCI which launched last month and is available ONLY ON CABLE. For those of you who rather buy your DigiCipher from someone other than General Instruments, GI has also licensed their DigiCipher technology to Scientific-Atlanta and Hewlett-Packard. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ TCI/MICROSOFT JOINT VENTURE PLANS INTERACTIVE TV TESTS │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ TCI, the world's largest cable operator and Microsoft Corp. have announced they have agreed to test interactive-television services next year in the Seattle and Denver areas. This joint- venture brings together two of the biggest "guys" in the business and both plan to dominate information-delivery and tele- communications technology. The tests will be the first step in creating and developing hardware and software to be used on the information superhighway. Said John Malone, president and ceo of TCI, "we will be working together with Microsoft to refine the technology and to learn what our customers want from interactive television." The tests will use new Microsoft software and TCI's digital networks for interactive TV. It's the old "ordering movies and home shopping by remote control" stuff again. When will these guys learn that the information superhighway has nothing to do with ordering pay-per-view movies or home shopping? Maybe a few billion dollars down the road. The next phase will include the tests of the interactive services by TCI's cable customers in Seattle and Denver. They say this will tell them what services subscribers want and are willing to pay for. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ HDTV ADVISORY COMMITTEE SELECTS ZENITH SYSTEM - NOT GI │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Three weeks ago the HDTV Grand Alliance selected the Zenith Electronics 16 vestigal sideband, transmission component system. This system can deliver a 1,000 line wide-screen, high-definition signal over most electronic distribution media. General Instrument's immediately announced that they have licensed the Zenith Electronics system. Under currently proposed FCC rules, broadcast stations would be licensed to use a second 6 mhz. channel for a 15 year period while consumers transition from analog tv to hdtv. At the end of the 15 year period the analog transmissions will cease. The new "advanced digital tv" broadcasting could begin as early as 1996 and many are hoping this will be in time for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. However, there is a slight problem. The cable industry is quite upset that broadcasters would be allowed to use their advanced digital tv systems to transmit compressed channels. In each area up to ten broadcast stations would be allowed to send up to six channels of compressed tv for a total of 60 channels. As usual, cable tv is violently opposed to anyone competing with them and will try to derail these plans any way they can. It's the same old dumb cable tv arguement: "nobody should be allowed to do anything but them". The cable industry plans to make the silly arguement that this "advanced digital tv" would create "new over-the-air spectrum" and everyone should be able to use it. I guess this means the "cable guys" now want to be "broadcaster guys." ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ WISCONSIN ORDERS TIME-WARNER TO STOP NEGATIVE BILLINGS │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ In Wisconsin, they take consumer protection seriously. For the second time in recent years the Attorney General has told a cable tv company to stop using illegal negative billing practices. The state argues it has authority to prevent Time-Warner Cable from using negative option billing. The usual scam bundles several channels into a single tier. Unless the cable subscribers insist on removing the unwanted channels from the package by writing or calling the cable company, they end-up paying higher monthly rates for the unwanted channels. In this particular case, Time-Warner took four channels that were free as part of their basic service - WGN, WTBS, Discovery, and E! TV - and then began charging $1.04 per month per channel. Unless the cable subscriber responded immediately when the change took place either by a telephone call or by returning a card that had been mailed with the monthly bill, the subscriber would have to pay the additional $5. per month. When the state ordered Time-Warner Cable to stop the negative billings Time-Warner filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming FCC rules allow negative billing practices. A federal court in Madison is scheduled to hear arguments on the civil suit shortly. The outcome could affect cable tv companies nationwide. Time Warner serves 425,000 subscribers in Wisconsin and almost eight millions customers nationally. In 1991, Wisconsin took similar action against TCI, amother cable company serving Wisconsin communities. Last year, TCI agreed to stop their negative billing practices. Another similar complaint has been filed by the state against Century Cable TV which serves 41,000 households in Wisconsin. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ JAZZ FANS WILL HAVE CHOICE OF TWO JAZZ CABLE CHANNELS │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ What's wrong with that? It's a lie - home dish owners will hava a choice of two different "cable" jazz channels. Cable subscribers will be lucky if they get either one. Recently, Black Entertainment TV announced they would launch a cable jazz network this October. Now a second competitor has gotten in line to offer-up some jazz. World Jazz, Inc., is a joint venture of a Los Angeles based company and Clipping Point KK of Nagoya, Japan. They plan to invest $1.6 million dollars to launch a jazz channel says Brian McCarty, it's chairman and founder. The 24 hour network plans to start-up on September 15th. Programming will consist of concerts, retrospectives, interviews,and other programs produced in both the United States and Japan. They are also trying to acquire more than 11,000 hours of jazz television programming from the Public Broadcasting System and PBS-member stations. The advertiser-supported network hopes to be carried by cable systems and direct broadcast satellite. They also hope to launch in Europe and Asia. "American jazz is tremendously popular in Asia and is easily broadcast around the world without country-by- country customization," says Clipping Point Chairman Yoshi Sakura. WorldJazz Inc. is a unit of Green Dolphin Media and was founded by McCarty. Clipping Point is a unit of Matsukami Corp. of Tokyo. Both companies are privately held - maybe they won't be pressured to scramble. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ TIME-WARNER ANNOUNCES DELAY OF FULL SERVICE NETWORK TESTS │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Time-Warner has announced that they are delaying their two-way technology tests for at least six months because their two-way technology isn't ready. The tests scheduled for Orlando Florida is designed to let people order movies, news, sports and other programs whenever they want and shop at home using their remote control. Time Warner hopes to be able to get the tests going by the end of the year. "What happens if a subscriber pushes the button on the remote and garbage comes up on screen? No one wants to see that happen, we want to get it right," a spokesman for Time-Warner said. They say they plan to offer the "full service network" to at least 80% of their nearly eight million cable subscribers by 1998. No mention of what subscribers would have to pay for this "service". ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ THE MONTHLY "STATE-OF-THE-DBS" REPORT... THE HYPE CONTINUES │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ New news this month: Satellite dish dealers a little upset that there's no money in DSS (digital satellite systems). If a dealer sells the system for $699. he makes $100. plus $50. for the installation. I was under the impression that both Sears and Circuit City would be introducing the systems at $599. This is going to make it a little difficult for a dealer to get $699. and that means the dealer would make nothing on the sale and just $50 for the install. Maybe if you do five installations a day, six days a week, you'll be okay. USSB has announced that you get a month of free programming with a system purchase - these are great guys. A second receiver to hook-up a second tv will run $649. but there's no additional cost for the programming on the second set. Sure beats the deal WE get on second receivers. More confusion has surfaced about the Direct TV package of programming. The DISNEY CHANNEL no longer is contained in the "personal choice" package and has been replaced by ENCORE and the $21.95 monthly price includes the digital cable audio and one monthly pay-per-view movie credit. DIRECT TV has also been telling people that the main package of programming contain 20 basic channels - 10 channels they select plus 10 channels the buyer chooses. However, this offer will not be available "until sometime later" and is not going to be an option at the early stages of service rollout. Something is very fishy here - why would a buyer only want 20 of the avilable channels? Previously, their package included ALL of the basics and now they're reducing that number to 20 channels as they add more basic channels. They are also causing more confusion by telling prospective buyers that if you take their "everything" package the price is only $260. a year. That's not true, the PLAYBOY CHANNEL and PRIME TIME 24 add another $14. per month to the real cost of the the programming or a yearly total of $428. DIRECT TV also announced that the nationwide roll-out will not happen until the fourth quarter of 1994. Until then, only a small number of controlled test sites will be installed as the factory gets enough units manufactured to meet their "huge" anticipated demands. As of today, March 7, 1994 - there is NO video to see yet so we still don't know what it will really look like. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - PACKAGE SYSTEM INCLUDES: RCA receiver/descrambler, 18" antenna, electronics package, 100' cable, and hookup instructions. CURRENT ANNOUNCED PRICE: $699. - does not include installation costs or additional equipment required. POOR RECEPTION AREAS: If 18" dish does not deliver sufficient signal levels a 3' - 4' dish will be available for about $200. more plus the additional installation and hardware. WHERE YOU CAN PURCHASE: Circuit City and Sears (nationwide) PROGRAMMING YOU CAN BUY: === SUPPLIER #1: DirecTv package of basics includes: THE FAMILY CHANNEL USA CABLE NETWORK THE NASHVILLE NETWORK SUPERSTATION TBS CNN HEADLINE NEWS COUNTRY MUSIC TV TURNER NETWORK TELEVISION THE GOLF CHANNEL CBC NEWSWORLD INTERNATIONAL TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES THE CARTOON NETWORK CABLE NEWS NETWORK SCI-FI CHANNEL CNN INTERNATIONAL CBC NEWSWORLD INTERNATIONAL NORTHSTAR COURTROOM TV THE TRAVEL CHANNEL C-SPAN I C-SPAN II THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL THE WEATHER CHANNEL E.S.P.N. THE LEARNING CHANNEL ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT C-N-B-C MUSIC CHOICE (digital audio services) BLOOMBERG BUSINESS NEWS Basics come as a package ONLY for $29.95 with THE DISNEY CHANNEL and all seven ENCORE channels, MUSIC CHOICE, plus two pay-per- view movie credits. Premium channels may be ordered ala carte - basics cannot. CBC NEWSWORLD and NORTHSTAR are the only channels for sale in Canada at this time and both are included in a special package for $9.95 monthly to Canadians only. PRIME TIME 24 PACKAGE: $3.95 monthly (limited areas) WABC-TV/NEW YORK(ABC) WRAL-TV/RALEIGH(CBS) WXIA-TV/ATLANTA(NBC) ENCORE/PREMIUM ENCORE/WESTERN ENCORE/TRUE STORIES ENCORE/ROMANCE ENCORE/MYSTERY ENCORE/COMEDY ENCORE/ACTION-ADVENTURE THE DISNEY CHANNEL - $9.95 per month PLAYBOY AT NITE - $5.95 per night Up to 120 channels of pay-per-view movies are also planned with a choice of 10 to 15 different movies beginning every 15 minutes. The 120 channels of pay-per-view plus 20 basics and 10 premiums completes their proposed 150 channel system in the sky. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - SUPPLIER #2: USSB (U. S. Satellite Broadcasting) the basic package includes: NICKELODEON LIFETIME TV COMEDY CENTRAL MUSIC TV (MTV) ALL NEWS CHANNEL VIDEO HITS 1 (VH1) E! ENTERTAINMENT HBO Package Showtime Package + Basics + Basics $24.95 per mo. $24.95 per mo. HBO Package: Showtime Package: HOME BOX OFFICE E & W MOVIE CHANNEL E & W HOME BOX OFFICE 2 E & W SHOWTIME E & W HOME BOX OFFICE 3 SHOWTIME 2 HBO CINEMAX E & W FLIX! HBO CINEMAX 2 Premium Plus $34.95 includes basics plus HBO package and Showtime package. USSB may add pay-per-view movies as an option later on but currently has no plan in place to do this. OTHER CHANNELS AVAILABLE: None FREE CHANNELS AVAILABLE: System informational/pay-per-view promotional channel 24 hours a day. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ WHAT'S HAPPENING ACROSS THE HOME DISH SKYS THIS MONTH │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ GALAXY 1R finally replaces the aging GALAXY 1 at the same location - 133 degrees West - you should notice a big increase in your signal levels. #01 - COMEDY CENTRAL (WEST) #02 - ECO GALAVISION (SPANISH) #03 - ENCORE #04 - TV FOOD NETWORK #05 - VACANT #06 - ZMUSIC TV #07 - THE DISNEY CHANNEL (WEST) #08 - THE CARTOON NETWORK #09 - SHOP AT HOME (OCCASSIONAL) #10 - VACANT #11 - ETERNAL WORD TELEVISION NETWORK #12 - VALU-VISION (HOME SHOPPING) #13 - VACANT #14 - SHOP AT HOME (OCCASSIONAL) #15 - SHOP AT HOME (OCCASSIONAL) #16 - VACANT #17 - NEW INSPIRATIONAL NETWORK #18 - VACANT #19 - HBO CINEMAX (EAST) #20 - ACTION PAY-PER-VIEW #21 - USA NETWORK (WEST) #22 - NOSTALGIA CHANNEL #23 - HOME BOX OFFICE (EAST) #24 - UNIVISION (SPANISH) As I am putting the final touches on this month's DISHCETERA, many of the transponders on G1R are still vacant. By the time you see this the bird should be pretty well filled-up. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - SPACENET 4 at 101 degrees West has inherited some of those Canadian channels that no longer have a ANIK E2 home so it's worth you while to run through all the channels on this bird whenever you get a chance. There's more than 3 ANGELS to see now... Northern Exposure, Sunday 2PM CST, transponder #12. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - If you want to see the GAY ENTERTAINMENT TV, ROBYN BIRD, or a show from the Susan Block Institute of Erotic Arts & Sciences, plus a variety of other pretty bizarre stuff - most of it many years old - then NATV is for you. Unlike N1 which is all hype and nothing to show for it, NATV - National Access TV has all the public access stuff you've ever wanted to see and more. And you should beware, we're talking complete nudity in some of the shows but most are so old and so boring that even nudity won't make them entertaining. You'll also have to tolerate tons of those 1-900-sex-line ads including on-screen graphic ads during each and every show. Sound familiar? They're on ASC 1 #11 and it looks like they're there 24 hours a day. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - President Clinton has nominated Rachelle B. Chong, to be a member of the Federal Communications Commission. She practiced communications law for three years while employed by a Washington D.C. law firm. Chong is a partner in the San Francisco law firm of Graham and James. Chong would be the first Asian American to serve on the commission. She was nominated on Wednesday. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - MULTICHANNEL NEWS reports that the new TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES channel will cost cable operators less than they were previously told. Yes, the price actually went down to CABLE TV. The first rate card announced prices that ranged from .15 to .55 per month per subscriber. Turner's competitor, AMERICAN MOVIE CLASSICS, charges an average of .27 per month per sub. I am forced to pay $19. a year for AMC; let's see, .27 times 12 months... yea, thats pretty close to $19. (.27 x 12= $3.24) ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ DISHCETERA - THE SATELLITE TV INDUSTRY ON-LINE MAGAZINE │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ■ DISHCETERA Satellite TV On-Line Magazine, now in it's sixth year of publication, is usually available on the first MONDAY of each month at our BBS or at a fine BBS near you - ask your SysOp to carry it. If you are a RIME SysOp you can receive it automatically each month through the network. ■ News items, press releases, questions, comments, and/or any other feedback may be sent to any of the following: ■ Our fax number is available 24 hours a day at 713-961-0303 ■ G*E*N*I*E: JDolan2 [your local access number] ■ CompuServ: 76164,1564 [your local access number] ■ Relaynet(tm): Route to: ->947 or ->SATEL ■ NVN - National Videotex: [your local access number] ■ Internet: satel@cld9.com [your local access number] ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ SATELLITE TV BOARD OF INFORMATION BULLETIN BOARD SYSTEM │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ (713) 623-4899 1200/2400/9600/14400 baud v.32 ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Relaynet(tm) Conferences Various Online Publications │ │ Relaynet(tm) Houston Hub Security Industry Assn. 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