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Start Free Trial NowTitle: WIHT to scramble signal more hours
Description: C4; WPXD
WIHT to scramble signal more hours A recent Federal Communica tions Commission ruling lifting some restrictions on subscription television services will mean changes for Ann Arbor’s Channel 31, WIHT. Kip Farmer, general manager of Channel 31 and “IT-TV,” the sta tion’s over-the-air subscription television service, said the FCC re cently removed regulations on how much time a station’s signal could be scrambled. Scrambled signals are the life blood of broadcast subscription TV. Stations such as Channel 31 program some of their air time with first-run movies and specials, then scramble the signal. That re quires viewers who want to see that programming to subscribe to the system and receive the decoder necessary to unscramble the trans mission. Channel 31, a UHF station, had been scrambling its signal from about 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. The remain ing hours were filled with un scrambled programs, primarily the Financial News Network, a live, on-going report of daily busi ness news. “THIS (FCC change) will now al low us to go with almost 24 hours of pay TV and movies this fall, al though we still will do some un scrambled programming,” Farm er said. That additional pay-TV programming should begin this fall, he added. Farmer said Channel 31’s parent company — Satellite Syndicated Systems of Tulsa, Ok. — is reorga nizing to better reflect some of those new possibilities. Besides op erating two TV stations. SSS also operates the satellite which trans mits such programming as the Ca ble News Network and the Enter tainment and Sports Programming Network to cable TV systems around the country. Beginning Aug. 2, Farmer will return to Tulsa as executive vice president of SSS. Satellite Televi sion Systems, a SSS subsidiary, will now oversee Channel 31 and another TV station in Tulsa. Jack Mann will head STS and be based in Tulsa, while an assistant man ager will be on-site for the Ann Ar bor operation. Farmer said the changes coming this fall will emphasize the TV company’s basic business, sub scription television. The Financial News Network probably will be dropped, he added, only months after it was introduced on Channel 31. “WE THINK THE future of this business is in pay TV. and the more we concentrate on that, the less schizophrenic we will be and the better off we will be,” Farmer said. “It’s very difficult to be two things at the same time,” he add ed. “It makes marketing sense to establish ourself with what we j know.” Farmer said the new FCC policy | also will allow subscription TV ser- 1 vices to sell the decoder mecha nisms, rather than rent them as Channel 31 does now. Those boxes might sell for around $200. he said, . adding that a subscriber’s monthly j fee for the service “would corre- ■ spondingly be reduced by a sub stantial amount.” Subscribers to IT-TV now pay $22.95 for basic service, and an ad ditional $3.95 if they wish to add an other few hours of movies. Farmer said IT has signed up about 15,000 subscribers during its 1 Vi years in operation.
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Clipped 1 month ago
- Ann Arbor News
- Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Jul, 30 1982 - Page 22