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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).