The Purpose of Programming
First we have to recognize that without one or more of these program/signal providers the public has no basis upon which to acquire the receivers. They have no basis upon which to believe there is a true lasting format being offered. Secondly, we have to accept that no major communications company today (like Murdoch or the Networks) have shown serious intent to provide HDTV signal services. The money spent by them in setting the standard was no more than a premium for an insurance policy. The fading hope held out by manufacturers has been that the FCC will force the the broadcast industry into initiating these non-compatible HDTV services. The price for spectrum, say the hopefuls, must be to deliver HDTV services! There is no political capital to be gained for the Administration in enforcing that. Some political capital would have to be spent. Broadcasters have a history for resisting such force by government since in the final analysis they act to elect the political body. We need to accept that it is unlikely that HDTV will be forced and that there is a need for an alternative plan. Heads must come out of the sand and realize that if the FCC does not force HDTV, the broadcasters will be the last to enter voluntarily. There is no repayment to the broadcasters for this upgrade. Being public minded servants is not a factor any longer. This roll has been overshadowed by the profit motive and the accommodation to stockholders. I say that without suggesting blame. They have done a fine job in their time and will continue to do a fine job, but they will not voluntarily pioneer. The National Association of Broadcaster's Vice President, Dr. John Abel, told me recently that broadcasters would benefit by someone else starting the business. Broadcasters, he said, would enter later when there was a more tangible potential for profit--like receivers looking for additional programs. Cable, while holding broadcasters' feet to the fire saying in the name of public service that broadcasting must use new spectrum for HDTV, will be happy to merely follow broadcasters in whatever they do. Cable will not lead it.
Dr. Abel notes that broadcasting, per se, was commercially inaugurated as a national service, moving regional as it matured. He believes this is the right way for HDTV to start. Direct Broadcast Satellite, then, is the ideal national distribution method. Video disc and video tape may well to be the first signal source to gain a loyal following, but are insufficient to lift HD into the mainstream.
To insure a secure launch of HDTV there must be a clear cooperative "pact" between manufacturers, program provider(s), signal providers, and the public. While chaos might prove fruitful for germinal things, it is not healthy for a solid opening of markets. The conditions for a new launch need to be industry-wide in order to produce widespread confidence for success. While the standards work has moved from the chaotic to the collaborative phase, the marketing strategies within major companies has not kept pace. There is no consensus among manufactures that HDTV will even happen, or if it does, to what degree. Woefully missing among the key players is a winner's attitude. Gratefully, some union is found on behalf of public demonstrations, such as the one using the Atlanta Olympic Games as demonstration programming. But, the organization of these demonstrations has also turned half-hearted. Obstructions from Olympic rights holder, NBC, have left the industry downcast and with no other idea than to approach Vice-President Gore to urge NBC execs to cooperate. Whatever union is gained for the Olympic demonstrations is threatened to end following them. Companies diverge too much on perspective. There is no vision held aloft that appears "obvious", or even important. Waving hands about quality in times of international reorganizations, uncertain jobs, and slithering domestic economies has appeared ephemeral at best. Yet it is hard to imagine how NTSC is to be overcome from a body that is divided and diluted in strength. Clearly the HDTV manufacturers who wish most urgently to benefit from their $5+ billion investments need to be focused to the execution of a specific market plan based on a vision with reason at its core. There needs to be an orchestration of the required participants with that vision to insure each part functions at the right time. You cannot launch programming services with no assurances of sets. You cannot have sets in the market without assurance of programs. A deficiency in consumer awareness will prevent sales, even if both programs and sets are in the market.
Why bother, you ask? Things will automatically take care of themselves. We don't have to do anything special. Everything is under control. If that were the case, everyone draws a paycheck in this business for no reason. To launch something as significant as the next generation of television requires intelligent application to the problem with the best minds the industry can supply. Neither the value nor the difficulty of getting off to a good start can be overstated. Certainly without a focus for the industry energy is dissipated to the point of being useless. For this reason I have been calling for this tight focus for nearly ten years. Regretfully I must admit to little success. There are those fearing a dictatorial hand in such a calling--one that will somehow diminish their own powers and careers. There is also a general distrust by the various players not only of the leader, who must be at the epicenter of things, but of each other as well. Those fears come to rest upon recognition that the orchestration of an event need not suffer from the rigors of heavy handed formality, but rather be within the creative and business confines of each member. To be in an orchestra one needs a superb preparedness, an alertness to the baton, and readiness to respond to various signals. The most important signal to respond to is the one carrying the HDTV programs. That is the one we have to build first and is the biggest baton.
What Is In the Way?
There are other factors holding back participation in an orchestrated event. Among consumer electronic set makers there is a grievous fear that if HDTV misfires in the marketplace the big screen sales of standard sets will suffer as well. Consumers delaying purchases of high end sets in anticipation of HDTV could for years damage the only profitable business left to consumer electronics--big screens. The home computer is taking a drubbing right now with people holding off buying until the much ballyhooed Pentium and Power PC chip models arrive. That industry moves a lot faster than standards-dependent television. If consumers believe that this wildly attractive HDTV is just around the corner, no question that a percentage will postpone buying big screen NTSC sets. I can only advise manufacturers that if they make the commitment to have HDTV in their product line they must do so as if it is the future and not a sidebar. If HDTV fails from lack of programming--the only conceivable reason for a failure--it may take buyers years to make their way back to the old system. Few like to go back after making a decision to go forward. Keeping a program source moving forward is essential.
Coming In From Another Angle
Perhaps the time has come to put aside the NTSC vs. HDTV question. Perhaps it is a mistaken insistence that HDTV replace the old standard. An alternative is to view HDTV as a brand new service positioned somewhere above the old ones. The only decision required then is a new one to support a new quality service, not to create a head butting strategy against a powerful installed NTSC base. To be successful HDTV does not have to shoehorn itself into the existing media outlets. It has the power to rise above them and draw up what wants to come up. Not everyone will want HDTV in the beginning, and we should not compromise our thinking to accommodate a market that doesn't even exist. Better we organize and direct our thoughts to the one that does.
Once the idea is sealed that HDTV has a specific, rather than general market, I am confident a way in which to support it will arise. Doubtless we can predict that in 20 years HDTV will be a mass market item. In the short-to-mid-term, however, the high-end buyers are the most likely. Ed Bleier, Vice President of Time-Warner's Home Video division, believes it is the audiophiles--turned into video image enthusiasts--who will be first. Gary Reber, publisher of this magazine, is an archetype! He began with high quality audio, but since an advance in image quality is becoming obtainable, he is moving on. Reber has several HDTV and widescreen sets in his home. Only one is attached to cable and the others are exclusively reserved for high quality input from laser discs. This HDTV business looks a lot like the old business, but for some time to come it will be an alternative business. The first markets, of course, will establish the conditions for later mass markets and insure that HDTV is, in fact, the next generation of television... blooming for years from ever-lowering prices.
How must the industry today allocate resources to achieve this future? Or should they take on no further responsibility for the launching of HDTV? Can't we leave it to entrepreneurs who are dying to lose money for the next two or three years, and who have no power to obtain quality programming? I don't think so. None have knocked on our door. Set makers wanted it that way in the beginning. "We make the hardware, you deliver the software, and 'we' have clients." The day for this kind of division of responsibility is drawing to a close. In fact, as we will learn later, it is coming around full circle. We are in the midst of a technical revolution which blurs distinctions between devices. In the same way there is a merging between company types. Manufacturers are becoming software savvy.
But is HDTV A Good Bet Even If It Gets Going?
There are countless places where a communications oriented company or investor can put money today. Multimedia, interactive, the NII information highway.... Ten years of observation of this industry has taught me that many things are paraded out as the big hit items of the future only to be junk after the hype dies down. Most recently Trip Hawkins of 3DO was on the a cover of magazines and held up as the guy to know in games and interactive video. A year ago John Scully, then with Apple Computer, told us that he was riding high on a trillion dollar a year industry-multimedia. Hawkins is back raising more money and Scully is trying to keep from looking like a one-eyed, if not cock-eyed visionary. Yet those two set into motion thousands of investment deals with everyone out to catch a wave before it broke into foam on the shore. Before it is foam, fat capital gains are reaped by the promoters, but the public is left in confusion.
What happened? Some look at digital technology as raw ore: You can do anything with it. You shape it into a product someone can hopefully understand. This camp says, quite justifiably, that HDTV is no more than a digital tele-puter with lots of resolution options and picture widths--whatever you can afford. It can be anything you like, when you like it, sent to whomever you like, and received, manipulated and responded to whenever and however you like. It is the very essence of the whim machine. Get a whim, and with navigator in hand you receive instant gratification, providing you can afford it. As a businessman, I belong somewhat to this camp. I know you can shape this digital ore into thousands of products. Some will be useful. Some will be hits for awhile. But they can't help but being fads in a hyper speeding technical era. They will always be superseded and made obsolete in short order. And those few longer term survivors, like Nintendo/Sega, have not caused you to replace your television with something else. If anything they hang on to your TV. While everyone has TV, only a percentage have Nintendo or Sega or computers. My question: At their very best will these other "fads" replace the long term function of HDTV? Point: HDTV is the big long-lasting business on the horizon for manufactures, program makers, distributors, retailers, and the public. Trust me on this, but only after we find a way to get it off to a good start with great programming.
Looking For Your First Audience Can Tell You How You Have to Program
From observations over the last ten years, from letters from those commenting on articles in this and other magazines, I have drawn a rather unscientific conclusion that HDTV fans are better educated and more economically conservative than the "digital soup" groups, though certainly no less imaginative. This group tends to have a deep appreciation for the arts, a healthy respect for contemporary technology, and the resourcefulness to get what they want. This group organizes its time for work and various recreations, among them home entertainment with family and friends. This group is inclined to see the play as a thing of entertainment, enlightenment, and beauty--but not as a means for killing time. They are not chief among channel surfers. They are informed viewers who plan ahead.
They appreciate theater. This is the group that reveres the creative author, the able director, and the inspired actor(s). It is a group most likely to shun--except in the service of curiosity--mindless and trivial diversions offered as substitutes for substance. This camp of achievers clearly understands the indelible value to society of diverse cultural heritage, and, yes, has a specially reserved place in its heart for that medium where all of these talents and cultural diversities focus--Hollywood movies. This group will infrequently watch television (when it is particularly informative, or featuring a favorite sport). What is not so well understood is that this group became disenfranchised from mass television. The mass medium sunk away from them in search of the common denominator. How much of the average television do you watch?
Like the publisher of Widescreen Review, Mr. Reber, many in this group have found quality in the audio realm long before video started its long march forward. Those who love fidelity rely on sound far more than televised images. At the same time, this camp watches and applauds showmanship; honors it, and well-patronizes the best of it. This group subscribes to at least one finely crafted and printed magazine, seeks out the latest in well written books, sees within the first two weeks--if possible--all recommended or eye-catching movies, and soaks up plenty of local, regional, national, and international news. This group might have season tickets, or, at minimum, attend some of their favorite sporting games--again, when time permits. This group hails from somewhat traditional beginnings, and has traveled sufficiently to appreciate cross-cultural differences and new relational experiences. I am sure I am talking about you, the reader of Widescreen Review. It is a group dedicated to various forms of continuing education, stimulated by work and family goals. Either through personal achievement or family inheritance, this group maintains a relatively affluent life-style. We again have to keep in mind that HDTV is a premium service. It should be targeted to this 10% first, no less so than does the high end audio and the home theater businesses. Consumer electronic companies do not excel in targeting the upper group since this group is not the great middle from whom they typically derive 99% of their income. This needs to change.
What High-Definition Programming Would Reach That Audience?
FCC Chairman, Reed Hundt, said in his satellite address to the NAB convention this last March that content is the determinate factor in advancing new communication technologies. Content as driver is a clear concept. No other decision can be made for boosting HDTV than to enlist in to service the most powerful producers of content. That content must lead the HDTV campaign. That lead, then, is incontestably Hollywood-made major movies during their first-run period. That period is when they are at the peak of their powers. Second-run is second-power, and if HDTV does not have an exclusive window within days of theatrical release it establishes itself forever as still another second-rate deal. I summarize: Hollywood is king of content. It is the source of the power the industry needs to advance a new format. HDTV needs to find a way to repay Hollywood for any privileges granted to it. The later is the business challenge. Pay them, you've got 'em where you need 'um.
Not So Fast, Buddy. Hollywood Doesn't Grant That Window.
If Hollywood is not compensated in some significant manner (by no means just cash-use imagination and knowledge here) up front for granting a first-run license for electronic distribution it won't happen. There are forces within the movie business which oppose this change. Interestingly, the primary obstruction is not from NATO (the North American Theater Organization). The resistance stems as much from the creative side as any--actors and directors--the stars (and the driving forces of Hollywood). It boils down to a status and career problem. Being a TV personality is not the same as being a movie star! We all know that there have been successful crossovers from film to television, but status remains a crucial factor in obtaining these early film rights. Arriving at possible solutions to this problem takes some serious thought. One answer is raise status of home-theater HDTV higher than the social status of a modern movie theater. How? That is the next question.
Movie audiences are now largely teens sitting in a place where their feet stick to the floor. There is only residual status left from the halcyon days of movie showing in the great movie exhibition palaces. In those days most of the nation gathered at least once a week in best dress to be seen, to ogle their stars, and to be transported to far off places of the mind. HDTV has the technical power to improve the movie-going experience while you are still in the home. While improving, of course, the theatrical audio rarely reaches the quality found in a well-prepared home theater system. MIT studies of a few years past showed clearly that audio contributes as much, and often more, to the enjoyment of a program as does the image. With the exception of big screen formats, such as Showscan, no movie theater has speakers positioned to provide a sweet spot for more than a few patrons. However, this sweet spot is always yours in the home. Home theater, which is audio dominated, is the fastest growing segment of entertainment. A case can be made that the ultimate audience experience is soon to be in the home. Ones own HDTV, complete with 5 digital-channel surround sound, focused to your sweet spot, will engage you immeasurably more than is possible in any but the most sophisticated of theaters, even when equipped with digital surround systems. The theater, of course, offers more in that you have a live audience with whom to associate. This social experience insures the healthy preservation of the theater. But it is not the place where movies will be enjoyed at their technical best. Summary: HDTV needs to be the star vehicle, not the training wheels. "Catch a rising star" could be our slogan.
Building Public Confidence Through Alliance
The public is not going to buy into anything that looks to have little or wishy washy support. They will want to know that when this HDTV business does finally get going that it will have the programming they want and won't suffer the same kind of format uncertainty as has been the case in Europe and Japan. In both of those regions the advanced television formats were pushed by political powers and faltered with the program providers. The public couldn't respond without programming and then the formats themselves were washed away in the current digital frenzy. Many consumers in Japan are left owning obsolete devices within months of their purchase. This cannot be allowed to happen here. To overcome this there needs to be an alliance where all manufacturers and program providers appear in support by subscribing their logo to the greater logo of the business. More on this at another time.
Leadership a Must
In the first days of radio one pioneer understood the business best. In fact, he invented, or rather discovered, the concept of broadcasting. This young man, David Sarnoff, went on to run one of the world's great companies, RCA. He understood that cooperation could not be counted upon when it came time to launch a receiver business. That understanding led RCA to own both the manufacturing of radio and TV sets and NBC. NBC provided the programs and signals--a sizable commitment that attracted the rest of the industry into the businesses of radio, black and white television, and finally color.
The highly complex broadcast and consumer electronics industries of today are too vast for one man to financially control. Cooperation through a shared risk economic alliance is the only way to replicate that essential coordinating power once held by RCA. If this alliance is to be achieved, the industry will have to identify and accept an independent public-spirited leader to pull it together. That leader won't be sought, nor even welcomed in their midst until the HDTV movement reaches its utterly darkest hour. As was David Sarnoff, the industry needs a benevolent and authoritative person to set clear and inspiring directions, and act firmly with the audience first in mind. At a minimum the industry needs someone acting as its head--one, who while guiding the many ships at sea into "Port Profit," can discourage dilution of the HDTV industrys strength. Only leadership with a believable vision can resolve the industry's inherent divisions. The mission cannot be overstated. It is no less than the means to overcoming the inertia and gripping fear of the status quo or the hazy future. More than anything, the industry has lacked this vision on how to light the one essential fire of enthusiasm, which it needs most. Once it is lit, a fantastic industry growth is easily foreseeable. Not incidentally, the crowning achievement for HDTV may come from delivering a restated relevance for television itself.
Dale Cripps
