How Is HDTV Launched Best? The Case for Upscale Market Entry Over Mass-Market Introduction

 

--Dale E. Cripps

The problem:...

 

 

Conventional wisdom has it that the institution of terrestrial broadcasting must play the major role in introducing HDTV signals in the United States. Satellite accepted that duty in Japan, and there is a mix of both destined for Europe.

This conventional view is clearly outdated. In 1989 the manufacturers of professional and consumer equipment decided among themselves that terrestrial broadcasters were the only ones who had enough public confidence to crush public and professional skepticism over the merits and validity of a new format and standard. Due to a plethora of causes, including a seamless reception achievable today via all digital distribution methods, this reputation has dramatically diminished to nothing. Indeed, terrestrial broadcasting today finds itself promoting 18 different DTV formats, which is producing a confusion that has grievously added uncertainty about the entire DTV transition. The public senses that something is wrong.

The same retail sector marketing the bulk of electronic devices in the United States is not the one well-equipped to resolve perplexing consumer questions about new and very expensive technology. Without criticism directed toward them or their social contribution, it can be fairly said that they are not well-geared to the pioneering of complex new technical products in the price range of HDTV today. This is even more true when there is a short supply of consumer oriented software for the hardware. These same retailers did not enter into the selling of computers until the public had answered most of their questions beforehand. Computers had become affordable and there was no question of software availability or instability in the operating systems.

HDTV has little other than quality to sell. The term DTV has come to mean an endless array of new digital services for buyers to consider with HD being but one. These "features" are no less than competitively introduced confusion which eclipses for the technically phobic the primary value of HDTV. HDTV can do best in the hands of a retail sector which is well positioned and trained for succeeding in upscale breakthrough markets, at least in the first long phase of the HDTV introduction.

There are strong currents within broadcasting, manufacturing, and retail today which recognize these conditions and are doing what they can to pull the H out of the DTV movement. The aim of many in this grouping is to moderate the digital television transition expense by introducing lower-than-HD-performance in both DTV signal and receiver, thus subtracting from the consumer services the higher potential of the medium. While this pressure to compromise becomes somewhat reduced with ever-lowering costs in electronics and, to a lesser extent, displays, there is still cost associated with every degree of higher video and audio performance. That unalterable fact has led many seasoned experts to declare that television has stratified itself forever with a variety of quality levels that must match expectations within their respective audiences. As there is always an audience for the lower performing services, there should be no doubt that there is one for the higher performing systems and services as well.

 

 

Under prevailing circumstances, the forward movement of HDTV is reined in by both price and the menu of attractions offered by regional and national television stations. It's a market mismatch of the most obvious kind. The introductory costs for HDTV receiving apparatus in the US is $7500 (on average), and is simply unreachable by all but the well off. In Japan, HDTV receivers began in 1991 sellingfor $38,000 (now between $2,800 and $12,000) and have garnered less than one million units in sales to date. HDTV is only a bargain for those who have, until now, been paying $20 thousand and more for optimized performance of the old NTSC standard. This group of video aficionados is the first vigorous and profitable market for HDTV. Some manufacturers have taken stock of their marketing plans and are now approaching this market, but have no large scale, or important programming solutions to offer...other than what is sent terrestrially.

Introducing HDTV into the mass market first is not only regrettable, but also unacceptable. Yet, that is the direction taken in the United States today. Terrestrial broadcasters came under a Federal government mandate in December of 1996 to build DTV stations in all the top markets, and then they were asked to appeal to their viewers to acquire new DTV receivers as quickly as possible. The primary payoff, if not for consumers, is to the government itself with their recovery, and then auctioning of, the spectrum now used by the older NTSC (expected to return in 10 to 15 years). That auction is estimated to bring to the Treasury $8 to $20 billion. The first beneficiary to an HDTV launch would appear to be the manufacturers of receivers, but this is dependent entirely upon the eagerness of the marketplace to accept the higher costs for what appears, and is a simulcast of the old program services. Already steep discounting of HDTV receivers is taking place in the consumer marketplace, but not steep enough to descend to a mass-consumer priced item, but if kept up, is enough to destroy the profitability for the manufacturers.

While few weep over lost gains by giant, foreign owned manufacturing circles, the economic discouragement of those manufacturers from further participation in HDTV development comes over time at the expense of all who would have raised their level of enjoyment in their lifetimes. The promise of HDTV is to raise the standard of living for all, not just manufacturers, signal providers, federal treasuries, or retailers. So, it is essential that it get off to a good economic start in order not to discourage future efforts for making the highest level always-more affordable to all of the citizens of the world.

While these problems in direction exist to slow the whole DTV process, there are alternative means which will accelerate it and make for exciting new approaches to getting HDTV off to a vigorous beginning. The alternative plans are not necessarily in lieu of the terrestrial plans, but rather act to insure that terrestrial will not have to make a major commitment until a pioneering service has caused an installed base of receivers worth their seeking.