Fort Worth Star-Telegram from Fort Worth, Texas • 143

1 4 I I -V i 1 I Star-Telegram 1 1' lisfrArA :) r- i 1 t4 I- i ij tr4 ii 's-7 i-1 7 4 7-n: '0-zz "lt: -64- 17- --741-1 i ri--ti 4- section FEBRUARY 1 1981 t-v -1- 1 1 71 I 1 71 1 -4 1- i A ''1 -1 I 1 fi I ti tv f'1 rJ 1- i 8 1 i -0 pi i 0 i r' kii5r 4kk A 74 l''0i 1 0 -A A 0 0 0 li 0 IA 1' t' 4 k' I '1 i A tki j) ia4 't 'A 0 4 4 I 4 1 -1 J-J ''4 7- "-a 11: at' 1 -i 7'11' 4 -11 7-'1 et 61 1:17 Blossom of fee-TV in area about to reach full 'flower By TOM STEINERTTHRELKELD Star-Telegram Business Writer NAME OF SERVICE i Service Operator and Channel SITE OF HOURS OF ORIGIN I RADIUS PAY SERVICE PROGRAMMING OF BROADCAST OF SIGNAL DAILY FARE SHOWINGS MOVIE TITLES OF EACH TITLE NUMBER OF PER MONTH EACH MONTH SUBSCRIBERS ER OF CRIBERS MONTHLY OTHER FEES START-UP CHARGE DEPOSITS DATE (average) (As of Jan 27) Jan 27) rur $1995 68 Cedar Hill (Dallas County) Is- 90 potent mown 42 3 (14acch schedule) Mita Hatton: $4995 Fib 28 1961 Deposit $25 ONTV Oak Communications Channel 21 Weekdays: pm-2 Weekends: 5 pm-2 am 10-15 percent sports specials and entertainment shows 14000 $1995 huts Ratios $4995 Nov 1980 Deposit $35 34 3 (January schedule) VEU Cedar Hill 70 milts Golden West Subscription Television Channel 33 85 percent movies 15 percent sports (Danes Mavericks basketball) specials other Weekdays: 7 pm-2 am Weekends: in2 oak ompoolin on eau lb 11 $1195 1240 Inttallahon: $4995 Jan 26 1901 Deposit None 53 34 (lec wiry schedule) movies news PREVIEW Cedar Hill AS mites American Television and Communications Corp (Time Inc division) Channel 27 Weekdays: 95 percent re 7 porn1 am 5 percent kX Fridays: specials 7 pm-3 am Saturdays: Sundays: 5 porn-3 am 5 pm-2 am 95 percent 5 percent local specials 12We S1895 Instal lation: $9995 Depost None 35 (January estimate) SHOWBIZ Texas Entertainment Network Channel 3 ett percent movies Mpemeritclokiren's programming entertainment specials Weekdays: 4 pm to 4 an Weekends: 10 am-4 am FOft Worth: May 151980 DHu March 11980 Fort Worth: 15 miles Continental National Bank Building Dallas: 25 milts Preston Tower le vS so 11 Van Alstyne Collinsville Valley Tioga How Era view View Valley Tioga How View nental National Bank with a radius of 15 miles from there and atop Dallas' Preston Tower with a radius of 25 miles Yet there is a technical drawback in the microwave transmission technique that may mean you will not be able to receive Showbiz even if your home is within those radii Microwave transmissions are "line of sight" transmissions If there are any buildings mountains or other obstructions blocking the path of the signal to your household you will be unable to receive the MDS programming The quasi-quadruplets But what you will receive will not vary substantially regardless of the supplier because these services are quasi-quadruplets born of a rush to fill Americans' seemingly unending video appetites And like quadruplets some features may be different but the basic characteristics are similar The costs will not differ that much Nor will the range of programming or for the most part even the hours Unequivocably these are movie channels Each service consists of roughly 80 percent movies and they all compete for movies from the same pool of available titles The duplications during a given month among the several services' offerings are numerous Hours are a tradeoff The subscription services run virtually identical hours with a high volume of titles with a low rate of repeat showings per month The MDS operator provides longer hours but more repeat showings Monthly charges are nearly identical to the penny ($1995) with all the subscription services and by the dollar with MDS ($1895 for Showbiz) Installation fees and deposits vary the widest but the subscriber can expect to plunk down from $50 to $100 just to get the service turned on in the home So if you're in the market for commercial-free movies at home you'll get them in spades If you're in the market for other programming keep your wallet in park But the pressure for other programming will be great No other major American metropolitan market has been indundated with four pay television rivals Only one Los Angeles has been able to support even one pay television operation profitably And with the program offerings and pricing hard to distinguish the promotion and marketing of the services is likely to be fierce as the competitors attempt to establish if not actual differences among themselves These will not be traditional media blitzes with heavy spending on print and broadcast advertising At home you are likely to be bombarded with direct mail campaigns telephone campaigns door-to-door promotions And away from home various services intend to enlist specialty video and stereo dealers and department stores to promote subscriptions At least one ON-TV is expected to open up its own retail outlets Moreover the substantial bucks of large parent companies will be there to pour into gaining lasting footholds in the market Preview is a unit of Sangef ngec Quietly with little fanfare a host of rivals has descended on your television dial determined to wring change in your viewing habits They carry catchy but little known names like VEU Preview ONTV Showbiz And their quiet approach is only temporary before they attempt to take viewing households by storm The rivals contend that they are taking part in the biggest media change in the Fort Worth-Dallas market since or more appropriately before cable television No other market in this country has seen more than two permits for subscription television services even granted much less operating But by Feb 28 Fort Worth-Dallas will have three such services plus a fourth pay service which uses a different technolo-BY-At first blush what these pay television operators have to offer sounds a lot like the public image of cableTV: sports entertainment Las Vegas shows recent run commercial-free movies classic movies older movies movies movies and more movies But while these operators are offering pay television it is definitely not cable Some of the services can and do receive programming from satellite feeds a la cable But they do not use a single mile of cable to distribute the signals to homes in the Fort Worth-Dallas market Indeed these operators use not one but two technologies to distribute their programming II SUBSCRIPTION TELEVISION (over-the-air pay television) Suppliers: VEU Preview ON-TV Like commercial TV these operators send their signals from a central transmitting antenna through the air over a 70-mile radius that extends from Sherman in the north to the town of West in the south and from Myrtle Springs in the east to Weatherford in the west They send over ultrahigh frequeny (UHF) channels and 33 on your dial During the day you will see programming on those stations while they are operated as independent commercial television stations During prime time and late night hours however there's nothing for you Unless you subscribe During those prime viewing hours the signals are scrambled Unless you subscribe to the service and have installed a converter that unscrambles the signal all you'll see is a scrambled picture MULTIPOINT DISTRIBUTION TELEVISION (MDS) Supplier: Showbiz This system also relies on signals but the signals are sent instead by much higher frequency microwave transmissions And again you must have a converter in your home to convert the microwave signal to one that will appear on your television dial In the case of Showbiz the signal is converted for viewing on N'IlF Channel 3 unused otherwise in this market Unlike its subscription television competitors Showbiz sends its programming from not one but two antenna sites atop Fort Worth's Conti 6tue Ridge Merit Merit Krum Ponder Not Pt Aubre Nowt Anna Aubre Westminster Melissa Prosper 7Lake Pilot Pt 40' Ar Aubre West Mellsr Pros Lake Decatur Princeton McKinney Argyle Greenville Boyd Lewisville Plano Reno Poolville 7 Paradise Justin Wylie Lone Oa 1 Springtown Azle Penner LaVOn Newark Poano Garland Rockwell Quinlan Mesquite irving White Haltom Terrell Cit Wills Pt Arlington Grand nntine Settlement Weatherford Frisco Mc i unetnila Pinnn Dallas Dallas Dallas Greenvill Lewisville Plano LaVOn nney Lone Oak Frisco McKi Wylie Penner DallasFrlsc Argyle Lewisville Pla Poabol I Penner Haltom Irving City rannri Greenville on Lone Oak Quinlan rerrell Willb Pt Fort Worth I IJI I WI II II Prairie Mans held Burleson Midlothian Venus Waxahachie mansrielo Burleson Venus Waxahachie Cresson Godley Keene Cranbury Cresson Cresson Godley Keene nbury uuu'vY Keene the emerging STV and MDS services This is a dynamic economic area all the demographics indicate it's a prime location" says Ed Frazier vice president and general manager for ON-TV here "Not to mention the fact that cable is having a lot of difficulty overcoming all the political hurdles" Cable as a threat can best be described in terms of consumer economics When cable television comes on line in the Fort Worth market for example basic service is going to offer 36 54 or as many as 108 channels Estimated prices: About $8 a month Pay "tiers" which include services like Home Box Office and Show time which are roughly equivalent services to Preview Veu and the like will cost more Estimated prices: Again about $8 By comparison you only get one channel of subscription television or MDS for $20 a month And on that channel only partial hours Hardly comparable since for $16 or $17 a month you can get not only a movie channel but also 36 other channels (or more) via cable "Most SIVs that are out there" scoffs Henry Castillo vice president treasurer of Cable Television information Center a consulting one channel and they charge typically around $25 Cable is going to offer you a minimum of 40 channels and possibly as much as 108 So for $16 you're getting 108 channels and HBO Which viould you choose?" Skimming cream That leaves the pay television operators undaunted Their strategy is to hit the market years in advance of cable and skim off the cream: the movie buffs and others dying for an alternative to network television Which does not necessarily mean a big market but the pay operators are not counting on huge audiences TEN's Olson says his outfit would be Time Inc one of the most aggressive American companies in the new communications media ON-TV is part of Oak Industries a pioneering electronics equipment manufacturer And Veu connected with the Gene Autry entertainment interests is 49 percent owned by the Signal Cos a diversified $36 billion group of companies A nine-month birth The birth of these pay television merchants in the space of nine months here is due largely to two factors one past one future The reason from the past is technological Until 1977 STV operators could not easily protect their signals That year the "addressable converter" was born It not only unscrambles the signal in the home but also lets the pay TV operator turn on or off a particular converter whereever it is This allows the operator to turn of converters reported lost or stolen to preclude those types of signal piracy And it also opened up what may turn out to be its most lucrative application so-called "pay per view" programming With the addressable capacity an operator can in effect sell tickets to individual programs and turn on the signal for those programs only to those who have paid The most notable example of that application in 1980 was the pay-per-view presentation of one Sugar Ray LeondardRoberto Duran prize fight Too costs have been falling Charles Olson executive vice president of the Texas Entertainment Network which provides the Showbiz package in Fort Worth and Dallas estimates the cost of TEM MDS receiving equipment has dropped to 10 percent of what it was five years ago through technological advancements "Now it (N1DS) is economically viable" he says The future reason Is cable television which threatens the growth of Rainbow Cleburne Kaufman Scurry Kemp Canton Ferns Rosser Sonoma Mabank Etitace EMUS bow Maypearl Bardwell I leburne Grandview GUrt Barrel Glen Rose Ital kett Forreston Rice Roane Mala Itasca omervell Rio Vista Mil Barry Po I ford Avalon 'Trinidad Covington Kerens At Frost BtoornIng Corsicana Hillsbor0 Bynum Grove Retreat Eureka 0' Irene Whitney Malone Richland Laguna Streetman 10 Abbott Hubbard Dawson Kdutman Canton Kemp tabank Eualace irrel Malakott Kerens Eureka 1 Cleburne Grai iannbbouwr Glen Rose Has somerwit Rio Vista Covington Stem Morgan 11111 Wh Laguna At Abb Ott rluonaro -DawSOn I RC: It 111 I1114 Aqui Ila West Mt Calm Wortham Coolidge Aquilia Mt Calm Wortham ilia West Coolidge A Leroy Star-TelegramDON COOK at Leroy 1 111111111110111111111Sitairl-Tial eiramDON COOK til services such as Home Box Office and Showtime are largely responsible for finally spurring the rush to cable a technology available but largely dormant since the 1950s The ArbitronVideoProbe Index' widely cited New Electronic Media study in 1980 gave evidence that pay services are a primary reason for cable subscriptions satisfied if the Showbiz package wound up with about 5 percent or 60000 to 70000 of the households in this market The STV operators according to Previevv's general manager Mario Dieckmann might well wind up with no better than 15 percent penetration combined Rut their targeting of their service to the movie audience and lead time could give cable operators fits Movie Please see Prices on Page 311 Passive Solar Heating direct heating method shown Builders show cut-back mood Smaller more efficient homes are the key to the 1980s builders told By JIM FUQUAY Star-Telegram Business Writer Convection and fans move air through home Cor th High summer sun mmer 1- 4 i 41 11111 WIVII Low winter sun Tile floor and poured concrete wall absorb and retain heat inter )r and poured t11L1 01611011 Al 111010101011 1011101111611011L 16166 111011WaMmb Itrollreraollgmeninb A "Ca Star-Tem-am 7 01611111 ii "creative" marketing techniques For example a Columbus Ohio builder was honored by NAM for its "Homestead Act" sales pitch Under the plan home buyers were given $1200 earmarked for a home down payment if they handled the insulating landscaping and painting of their new home with materials provided by the company A Houston builder said he gives away as much as 10 percent of the price of a home when he buys expensive 13 and 14 percent mortgage money and offers it to buyers at 117 percent if you'll just please buy one of his homes Options for keeping a builder alive seem limited One solution is simple move to Fort Worth or Dallas or Houston or Florida or anywhere its warm Home buyers apparently have flown south with the birds The Fort Worth-Dallas area is forecast by NAIIB to be the No 1 home building area in the nation in 1981 NAIIB expects 38160 new homes to be built here this year That's up 26 percent from 1980 HOUSTON RANKS third with 32600 forecast and the two Texas cities flank West Palm Beach-Boca Raton Fla with 32700 new home starts forecast The only "northern" city in the top 10 is Washington DC Chicago the nation's second-largest city is the top-ranking "Frost Belt" city at No 19 The so-called experts of home building tell builders to build smaller to survive Build more homes on smaller lots make a tit may be willing to sacrifice to avoid the dues increase What's the problem? Everybody knows home prices have skyrocketed in recent years and everybody knows that home mortgage interest rates are far above historical rates But consider this statistic and its impact: As recently as 1977 when the average home in Fort Worth sold for $41400 and interest rates were between 8 and 9 percent 36 percent of all home buyers were nation's young establishing a stake in their community By 1979 with the average home at $59200 and mortgages still under 12 percent first-time home buyers had declined to 18 percent Currently the average home costs more than $70000 mortgages cost 13 percent and up and first-time home buyers are less than 10 percent of the total That means more and more of the prime home-buying population people between 23 and 35 years old cannot afford to buy And the steadily rising percentage of US citizens who own their homes which last year reached almost 70 percent threatens to be gin a startling slide downward ABOUT 400000 new homes constructed by home builders working on borrowed moneycosting them 20 percent and up remained unsold at the end of 1980 At last year's rate of 13 million new home starts that's almost a three-month supply sitting vacant and costing builders about $1000 a month in interest charges An economy like that inspires Perhaps an indication of just how bad the last year in home building really was is illustrated by a floor fight at the National Association of Home Builders' recent convention A rJ) a year dues increase the first dues increase since 1967 sparked heated debate before it finally was voted down Proponents said the increase was necessary to keep the association rolling But a frowning Washington state homebuilder observing the proceedings commented "Now is just not the time" AS BUILDERS STOOD to cast their votes the nays while scattered throughout delegates from most states clustered around the Midwest and Northeast One Buffalo NY homebuilder urging a no vote said that when his NAHB dues last increased 14 years earlier he was a young home builder just in business in a market that saw2500 new home starts In 1980 he said new home starts were at most 500 "That's quite a change" he deadpanned leaving no doubt about the effect the depressed Buffalo market had on local home builders Rejection of the dues increase will mean cutbacks in the 1981 budget NAIIB officers warned And in an association that prides Itself as being a statistical fountainhead of information on its industry accepting the cutback indicated just how much builders One passive solar proponent aaid "smart builders can enjoy a competitive edge by offering attractive surpf illed rooms with low utility bills" Passive solar homes feature lots of big windows facing south and a fan to move the warm air throughout the home Other characteristics include a concrete or brick mass in the house that retains the suns heat Its a concept that Socrates wrote about when he was recommending Greek building plans in 400 BC But today's rising energy bills make the idea as contemporary the new fuel-efficient cars parked in this nation's garages One California builder even presented a a passive solar home he built in Sacramento which he tie house look big by vaulting ceilings and using lots of windows they say "Homes of IGO to 1000 square feet are the answer to the 1980s" one respected home designer told builders Marketed along with those smaller homes must be some special quality that makes them appealing designers said A big push is under way for "passive" solar heating features Passive solar means that the house simply in the way it is situated on the lot and built takes advantage of the sun's warming rays It's different from "active" solar heating which uses special solar collectors to heat a fluid or air and then actively pumps it to heat-exchange mechanisms to warm the home claimed recently received a solar tax credit for the entire house as opposed to receiving the credit for a single piece of solar equipment John Kurowski a Colorado builder noted that as one of 13 chosen builders in the country he is reimbursed by the Solar Energy Research Institute for additional design fees he incurs when planning passive solar homes According to Mike Maybaum a solar energy representative with the US Department of Energy the cost of passive solar design is droppinglie said that approaches that add as little as $1 per square foot in the home are available More complete designs can add up to $5 per square foot he said 4 i i 6 4 -41 i.