Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utcsrgv.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!peterr From: peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley) Newsgroups: net.tv,net.misc Subject: C Channel Dies-- Hi-tech a fad? Message-ID: <1559@utcsrgv.UUCP> Date: Sat, 18-Jun-83 10:33:06 EDT Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.1559 Posted: Sat Jun 18 10:33:06 1983 Date-Received: Sat, 18-Jun-83 10:44:02 EDT Organization: CSRG, University of Toronto Lines: 22 Friday, after losing $11M, the Canadian "lively arts" pay TV channel, like CBS Cable in the US before it, bit the dust. C Channel will end operations at the end of June after only 5 months and 27,000 subscribers (they had planned on around 100,000). News reports claimed the main reason for the collapse was under-financing, which made the need for subscribers highly critical. I think they made a few tactical mistakes, such as starting before the economic recovery really got underway, and starting with only around 7 hours of programming a day. It is interesting to contrast the service with the local (Buffalo) PBS station which has over 90,000 members in Ontario alone, who pay between $30 and $100 a year (in contrast to C Channel's near $200/yr). I've heard reports of a shake-out in the US pay TV market also; the Entertainment Channel folded (which releases the rights to BBC programs so PBS can pick them up again!) and Showtime and the Movie Channel want to merge so they have a chance of making a profit like the only profit-maker, HBO. And there's a surplus of US domestic satellite channels, with 45% of the around 240 channels free. There've been many reports about the shine going off hi-tech stock (TI stock lost around US$40 this week, for example). I wonder if all this means that hi-tech is just a fad? Maybe the real growth industry will not be the information "providers" or "processors" but "creators", i.e. artists. (This is, of course, mostly, but by no means entirely, tongue-in-cheek).