The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • 55

THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION SECTION Daily indicators Dow Average NYSE Volume Briefs NYSE NASDAQ Amex 2 4 5 NASDAQ Prime rate 26-week T-bills Gold in New York Down 0.37 ll'4 8.50 $330.75 i Down 14.80 86.30 million Wednesday, Nov. 29, 1984 MSX: the Japanese entry? 6 Nick y''' I Poulos Plans for the U.S. computer market remain a mystery TBS signing off its music video channel By Keith Herndon SlaH Writer t- 1 Turner Broadcasting Systems Inc. announced, Wednesday that it will pull the plug on its Cable Music Channel Friday" slightly more than a month after the 24-hour music video channel debuted. The Atlanta-based cable television network said it has reached an agreement for the sale of "certain assets" of the Cable Music Channel to the New York-based MTV Networks Inc.

for $1 million. The agreement also calls for MTV, the only other 24-hour cable music video channel, to purchase $500,000 worth of advertising time on other Turner channels, including SuperStation WTBS, the Cable News Network and CNN Headline News. -mem -1 4Mb. fWj W. XV i 2 if By Robert Snowdon Jones SlaH Writer Japanese and Korean electronics companies are dying to get a piece of the U.S.

home computer business, but so far the giant companies have been unusually timid. The much-touted MSX hardware and software standard developed by Microsoft Corp. and announced in Tokyo in June 1983, is seen by many as a panacea to the Asian companies' quandary. MSX, adopted by 16 major world electronics companies, provides the standardization the Asian companies need for cheap, mass production of the computers and their accessories. But for the most part, the big companies say they doubt if American consumers will see many Asian-made machines in stores next year.

far as I know, there are no plans to market our MSX machines in this country," said Donna Ventemilla, a spokesman for Pioneer Video USA. The reason: Software for the MSX computers doesn't exist and the market is already dominated by Apple Computer Commodore International Atari International Business Machines Corp. and Tandy Corp. "Our MSX computer is available in Japan and Europe," said Ken Shimba, a spokeman for Matsushita Electric Corporation of America, which makes Panasonic products. "The computer market in the U.S.

is different. We do not believe we can do well competing with IBM and Commodore." Instead of marching head-on into an uncertain market, it appears the Japanese companies will try to integrate the computer into the business' they know best mass-market consumer electronics loaded with fancy gadgets and features. The computers will crop up inside of television sets, music keyboards and as accessories to audio and video entertainment products. for example, will introduce a'music" computer that can be used to 1 compose music on its DX line of board instruments. According to Steven Ting, president of Qest Publishing of New York, an MSX engineering concern; the Yamaha computer conforms to the MSX standard, but won't be advertised that way.

Ting, who designed an unsuccessful US. MSX machine called the Spectra Video, said the Japanese are concentrating on selling to the United Kingdom right now, with the intentions of building a Japanese computer manuals: But what are plans for this country? Ted Turner's jaunty image as Mr. Lucky takes a bruising with the demise ol the Cable Music Channel Pagel-C. TBS said the Cable Music Channel will cease opera' tions at 11:59 p.m. Friday.

"We continue to believe that Cable Music Channel is a top-quality music video service, but we simply have not had enough support from the cable industry for It to become a viable part of our business," said TBS Chairman Ted Turner in a prepared statement. "We are very disappointed, but feel that the discontinuance of the service now and the sales arrangement with MTV Networks Inc. are in the best interest of the company." A TBS spokesman said earlier that the company had planned to spend between $10 million and $20 million to launch the Los Angeles-based channel, and that it would have taken between $40 million and $50 million in investments to make the venture profitable. TBS had said it expected the channel to lose more than $10 million during its first year. "This is a splendid development in terms of Turner Broadcasting's future financial health," said Lee Wilder, a securities analyst who follows the company for Atlanta-based Robinson HumphreyAmerican Express.

"Turner has cashed in the project with a minimal amount of financial damage. If he had kept it going into next year, it would have been a significant cash drain on the company." The actual losses created by the Cable Music Channel have not been determined, according to company spokesman Arthur Sando, but analysts expect the loss to be about $1.5 million. The company said it expects a net loss in the fourth quarter, but not as great as last year's fourth-quarter loss of $5.1 million. Ms. Wilder said she expects the company's earnings to be 35 cents per share in 1984, compared with 34 cents per share in 1983.

According to a preliminary prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Turner Broadcasting's loan agreements with various banks limited the company's investment in the Cable Music Channel to $1.5 million in 1984, $7.5 million in 1985 and $5 million in 1986. The document said the investment in 1986 would be contingent on the channel having 10 million subscribers, The Cable Music Channel has only 400,000 subscribers, even though Turner had said earlier that he wanted to start the channel with 10 million subscribers. 1 have a planning horizon of six to 10 years," he added. MSX was developed by Kazuhiko "Kaye" Nishi, president of Microsoft's Far East division. He is co-founder of ASCII-Microsoft, a large Japanese software and publishing company, and was a designer of a popular lap-size computer marketed in this country by Radio -Shack and NEC.

The MSX standard gives consider- able flexibility to computer designers. It can be plugged into videotape machines, laser video disk players, music keyboards, stereos, burglar alarms and numerous other electronic devices. Micro-'soft has designed the computer's disk operating system in the mold of its pop- ular MS DOS system, a de facto business computer standard which is licensed to IBM for its computers. MSX DOS cannot run programs designed for MS DOS, but it can read MS -DOS files. A letter written and stored on an IBM Personal Computer or compatible equipment, therefore, could be read into an MSX machine.

software base of programs in English. "The way we see MSX being viable is being a part of our home audio-video products a part of an electronic home entertainment center," said Kevin Elias, new business planner for US JVC Corp. "We have to develop a niche and we have to get consumer awareness," he said, adding, "I don't think you'll see a JVC MSX computer for sale any time next year." At least some MSX watchers believe the MSX companies are trying to play down their plans to inundate the market with the computers next year. "It annoys me that they keep denying it," said Robert Chapman Wood, of Modern Economics a Scituate, consulting "I'm getting inside information that they are getting ready to introduce the machines." Wood said he expects to see MSX machines by Christmas 1985, that come with 256,000 characters of memory. "You have to remember that the MSX people unlike the people who are selling home computers here who have a planning horizon of 18 months Woes continue to plague the oil industry The trouble in the big oil patch keeps mounting.

The major oil companies are getting more nervous, as crude oil prices continue to weaken despite the efforts of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to hold the price line by reducing production. Lower oil prices mean lower earnings for the oil companies, although lower prices would be a boon for consumers, who are apt to be paying less for gasoline by next spring. The stock market has -taken cognizance of the oil industry's knocking down the price of oil securities. And the slide in oil stock prices may go on for. some time, in view of the prospects for a further dip in energy demand.

At the same time, the more vulnerable oil companies are keeping an eye out for T. Boone Pickens the Mesa Petroleum Co. chairman, who brought Gulf Corp. to its knees. Like a fox circling the henhouse, the man from Amarillo, Texas, is still on the prowl for a victim, and this time he's got a lot more money to invest in another acquisition adventure than when he went after Gulf.

Several vulnerable Exxon of course, is much too big a potential target even for Boone's voracious appetite. But the managements of companies such as Mobil Phillips Petroleum Unocal and Texaco Inc. have posted lookouts for a possible attack by Pickens. But the Pickens story is a sideshow compared to what's happening to the oil industry on a fundamental supply and demand basis. There's simply too much oil available in the market, and OPEC is fighting a desperate, rear-guard action to try to keep oil prices from collapsing in the face of weakening demand.

Oil prices fell sharply this week on the spot and futures markets, reflecting the fact that the oil producers simply aren't succeeding in keeping prices up. OPEC has been trying to maintain its official benchmark price for oil at $29 a barrel, but with economies weakening, it appears that the forecast by Henry Wojtyla that oil could plunge to as low as $15 a barrel by the end of 1985, doesn't appear to be so farfetched now. Wojtyla: Price must fall Wojtyla, an economist with the New York-based securities firm Rosenkrantz, Ehrenkrantz, Lyon Ross figures that there's no way OPEC can hold its price line in the face of slumping economic activity. More to the point, Wojtyla insists that the price of oil must eventually fall because energy supplies are growing substantially faster than demand. Economist Edward Yardeni of Prudential-Bache Securities Inc.

observes in a recent commentary that although OPEC is no longer a producers' cartel with the power to raise oil prices at will, it is not dead. "Rather, it has become an administrative body that is serving the Interests of the consumer countries; primarily, overseeing the orderly decline of crude oil prices," Yardeni observes. "A precipitous drop in prices is not in the best interest of consuming countries." Obviously, OPEC never intended to become what Yardeni calls a consumer protection agency, but the cartel brought it upon itself. OPEC raised the price of its oil so high in the 1970s that it spurred non-cartel production and triggered a wave of conservation efforts. "The down trend in oil prices which began in 1980 could continue for several more years," Yardeni asserts.

-Nick Poulos Is business editor Securities group calls for revisions in tax reform plan gains and personal income taxes. Personal income taxes now run as high as 50 percent, while capital gains taxes are 20 percent. The highest tax rate under the Treasury proposal would be 35 percent. "It would be a disaster to the hi-tech segment if the capital gains preference was eliminated," said Thomas I. Unterberg, chairman of L.F.

Rothschild, Unterberg, Towbin. Brokerage executives said that investments in real estate and energy exploration, which often hinge on tax benefits, also would be hurt by Treasury proposals to eliminate tax See TAX, Page 2-B policy until August, said the plan would tackle a major economic issue by reducing, the role of tax considerations and government involvement in business and personal investment decisions. Business executives and lobbyists gathered here at the Securities Industry Association's annual convention faulted the Treasury plan for failing to provide any. means for trimming the federal budget deficit. Treasury officials said the plan, which would cut personal and corporate tax rates while eliminating many tax deductions, would neither raise nor lower overall tax revenues.

would hurt its prospects for adoption by arousing concern from a broad range of interest groups. Shapiro noted that state and municipal governments probably would face higher borrowing costs because lower tax rates would make the tax-exempt bonds less appealing. Consequently, he said, the bonds would have to offer higher rates to attract buyers. Officials of the association said that the Treasury's proposal to eliminate favored tax treatment of capital gains would weaken interest in investments in fledgling companies. The Treasury plan would eliminate the distinction between capital Stephan K.

Small, the association's director of congressional relations, said the failure to address the deficit problem would hurt the tax dan's chances of generating support Congress. In addition, he said, the Treasury "didn't provide the tax cut that is the carrot for public support for tax reform." "We're not suggesting to anybody that this is a fait accompli," added Robert Shapiro, president of the Wertheim Co. brokerage and incoming chairman of the Securities Industry Association. Shapiro and other association officials said the sweeping changes in tax law proposed by the Treasury By Stuart Silverstein SUM Writer BOCA RATON, Fla. The U.S.

Treasury's plan to revamp the tax system has little chance of being adopted in its current form because it both attacks various special groups and lacks key ingredients for attracting political support, securities industry executives and lobbyists said Wednesday. A former Treasury official who helped shape the tax plan, however, warned against dis-. missing the proposals lightly. John E. was the Treasury's assistant secretary for tax Lenox Square planning to add office tower, hotel Atlanta's potential international air service Study: City needs new air routes 1985 traffic 1985 traffic Market potential Market potential Toronto 184,987 Caracas' 26,447 Montreal 118.929 Zurich 24.928 Paris 82,786 Santo Domingo 24,053 St.

Thomas 73,779 Seoul 20,778 Acapulco 48,383 Copenhagen 19,631 Rome 45,160 Ottawa 18.702 Athens 42.982 Calgary 18,424 Winnipeg 40.090 Edmonton 15.840 Madrid 39,370 Puerto Vallarta 14,691 Munich 37,123 San Jose 13,837 Tokyo 34,068 Bogota 13,000 PanamaCity 30,381 Rio de Janeiro 12,133 Vancouver 29,659 Buenos Aires 6,490 St. Croix 27.857 Curacao 5,653 Since it opened in 1959, Lenox Square has been expanded several times, most recently in 1980 when a food court was added. The project now contains 1.4 million square feet of space and three an-, chor department stores. The additional development would be on the portion of the center's site that is nearest the Lenox MARTA rail station. That station, which will be one of three opening in north Atlanta in mid-December, has sparked a construction boom in office buildings and hotels and has attracted several new national developers to the already-thriving Buckhead area.

In air rights over and adjacent to the station's two concourses, hotels and office towers are planned or already under construction. And within a radius of several blocks of the rail station, more large high-rise office, residential and hotel developments are Dlanned or under wav. By Sallye Salter StaH Wrllv Owners of Lenox Square will announce Thursday plans to expand the 25-year-old shopping complex with an office tower and hotel. Additional development that would convert the Buckhead retail center to a multi-use complex has been included in the center's long-range plans, for several years. Corporate Property Investors, which owns the mall, has scheduled a press conference Thursday at the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead.

According to an application for a zoning variance that was approved by the city earlier this month, the expansion will be near the intersection of Lenox and East Paces Ferry roads. 1 The plans filed by CPI, which purchased the center in 1976, indicate the expansion would include a 19-story office tower and a 24-story hotel contain- ing 30(1000 square feet By Maria Saporta Staff Writer The market for international air routes to Atlanta is beginning to take Hartsfield International Airport, which was designated as a trans-Atlantic gateway in 1977, continues to be underserved as an international airport compared to its existing traffic patterns, according to a new study. The study by Simat, Hellicsen Eichner an air traffic consulting firm based in Waltham, was commissioned by the city's aviation department and the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce to identify the markets with the highest potential for international air service from Atlanta. The greatest unserved market Based on number ot persons already traveling between Atlanta and these destinations via other connecting cilies. and estimated additional travelers il direct service was available.

Source: Simat, Helliesen Eichner Inc. MIKE GOETTEEStaff gers to justify a daily direct flight between two cities with a narrow-body aircraft. It takes about 62,000 passengers to justify daily service with a wide-bodied aircraft, which ing to the study, 184,987 passengers would fly between Atlanta and Toronto, and another 118,929 between here and Montreal. John director of marketing for the Atlanta airport, said it only takes about 37,000 passen ot The Atlanta Constitution and for direct air service is Canada. With direct service in 1985, accord- The Atlanta Jni oitsial.

See AIRLINES, Page 2-B.