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are not scheduled to meet until classrooms. Continued from Page A-l Miami would rent the station from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. for its subscription television. “The arrangement makes it much less risky for us to build the station in Ann Arbor,” Taylor ex plained. RICHARD L. LEHMAN, public affairs director of Wometco, said the 54-year-old company provides over-the-air pay television and movies, very similar to what cable television customers can receive now. Wometco became involved in subscription TV about two years ago, he added. Lehman explained that over- the-air programs are primarily for larger urban markets which don’t have cable television. He said the Ann Arbor station would provide the company with the lu crative metropolitan Detroit mar ket, where there is no cable TV. The company has applied for a similar operation in Chicago, Leh man said. The system would operate simi larly to Ann Arbor Cablevision’s current in-home movies, Lehman said. “We will broadcast a scram bled signal, and customers will pay $15 a month rental for the dec oder, which will be attached to their television.” Programming will consist main ly of un-cut, full-length movies, Lehman said. Ann Arbor’s cable TV system will have little effect on Wometco’s operations in the area, he added. Wometco. which began as a theater company, now owns com panies which offer leisure-time ac tivities, Lehman said Those in clude cable TV systems, vending companies, broadcasting opera tions and Coca Cola bottling opera tions, he added. WOMETCO owns five television stations, including ABC affiliate WZZM in Grand Rapids, Lehman said. Southern Satellite’s Taylor said the Ann Arbor station would be the company’s first TV station in oper ation. There also are applications pending in Tulsa and Memphis, Tenn., Taylor said. While it will take time to build up programming, Taylor ex plained that family shows proba bly would be offered from 3 to 8 p.m. on the Ann Arbor station. An interview show on Ann Arbor events will be scheduled, he said. Local news also could be offered in time, Taylor said, depending on advertising support. Taylor, a former employee of the American Telephone and Tele graph Co., said his company cur rently has three channels on an RCA satellite which it uses to dis tribute programming to more than 800 cable TV systems throughout the nation. Taylor, a friend of Atlanta Braves baseball team owner Ted Turner, said his company distrib utes Turner’s Channel 17 from Atlanta, which offers movies and sports coverage. SOUTHERN SATELLITE also offers a show called Newstime, showing news photographs with a voice explanation of the event. Another station on the satellite carries an Oakland, Calif., station with programming similar to the Atlanta station but in a west coast time frame. The third station carries a news service and specialty news pro grams, Taylor added. Southern Satellite will invest about $2 million for Channel 31’s tower and studio, Taylor said. The station’s -million-watt signal will reach suburban Detroit, Lan sing, Flint, Jackson and Bowling Green, Ohio, he added. General manager for the station will be Jack Mann, formerly with ABC-TV on the west coast, Taylor said. Mann will be in Ann Arbor within the next few weeks to look for a studio location and interview citizens on the types of program ming they would like from a local TV station, he said. LOCAL BACKER Morningstar said his company stands to lose at least $30,000 by transferring the station’s construction permit. Backers already have spent $400,- 000 on the station project, he said, and the maximum they would be able to recover is $370,000. The FCC will make the final determination on how much of the money spent on application fees, legal costs, engineering and mar keting studies will be returned to the Ann Arbor company. Morning- star said. “Either way we’re starting at a loss,” he added. “But my delight is in seeing the community get the service they will get from this type of company (Southern Satellite).” After 14 years of campaigning for a local TV station. Morning- star said he would “relax for awhile” if the permit transfer is granted. Then he plans to finish writing three books he has started — and probably go back into broadcasting. The impact of Wometco’s over- the-air subscription TV on the lo cal cable system would be difficult to assess, said Ann Arbor Cablevi- sion manager Tom Ridley. “If and when the station is built, first of all, we would be required by the FCC to carry it on the ca ble,” he said. “Another pay ser vice would impact the (cable) system. It certainly would split the market, but it would depend on what types of programs they would offer.” Panel will he maize and blue One panel discussion at the American Oriental Society annual meeting, which begins April 23 in St. Louis, might be called an “all- Michigan panel” or “Professor Crump’s panel ” Professor James I. Crump, who teaches Chinese at The University of Michigan, will be on the six- member panel - but all the other panel members will be his former doctoral students. They will dis cuss “Mongul Dynasty Song Poe try.” Crump’s fellow panel members , and former students are: Elleanor E. Crown, who now teaches at Wayne State University; Paul Kroll at University of Virginia; Dale Johnson at Oberlin College; Stephen West at University of Ari zona ; and Ching-shi Perng at Nati- nal Taiwan University. PCB.
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Clipped 1 month ago
- Ann Arbor News
- Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Apr, 10 1979 - Page 2