The Big Wire

The weakest thing about the prospering U.S. television industry is its broadcast signals. Blocked by mountains, bothered by airplanes, bounced by hills and high buildings, they generate only ghosts on TV screens in many parts of the nation. To remedy this bothersome situation, a controversial industry has grown up across the U.S. Called CATV (for Community Antenna Television), or cable TV, it banishes ghosts and vastly increases TV reception by grabbing the signals of TV stations out of the air with towering antennas, amplifying the signals and piping them into homes by coaxial cables strung on telephone or utility poles. Serving mostly outlying areas, cable TV has grown into a $750 million business that includes 1,450 systems and 1.6 million subscribers spread over all states except Alaska and Rhode Island.

Inevitable Control. More companies are set up every month to bring CATV to more communities, most of them operating on local franchises that give them exclusive rights to a certain area. The biggest CATV company is H & B

American Corp. of Los Angeles, which owns 30 scattered systems serving 80,000 subscribers; it is followed by TelePrompTer Corp. of New York, whose 16 networks serve 60,000 customers. Their success in the field has already attracted several major corporations: CBS. Warner Bros, and RKO General all own CATV systems, and General Electric and Litton Industries are studying the field. Of the 522 television stations in the U.S., fully half have some interest in cable TV, among them Lady Bird Johnson's KTBC in Austin, Texas. So fast has cable television grown that the inevitable is happening: the new Congress will soon get legislation aimed at putting the industry under federal control.

The Government thus far supervises only the 250 cable TV companies that are classed as common carriers because they use microwave equipment to pick up and transmit programs. Most companies use ordinary towers that require only a local franchise. Organized for as little as $250,000, CATV companies charge installation fees of $5.50 to $30, offer viewers excellent reception of up to a dozen channels for monthly rentals that average $5. The systems operate with a minimum of personnel and 98% efficiency, are expected to return investment within nine years.

From Towns to Towers. This efficiency and profitability have involved CATV in a hot debate. Though it does not generate its own programs, for example, many people see it as a form of controversial pay TV, which last week got a setback in California (see SHOW BUSINESS). Networks have mixed feelings about CATV, but TV stations resent its frequent disruption of local markets with outside channels. Cumberland, Md.'s Potomac Valley TV Co. provides five Washington channels for its 18,000 subscribers, and Panther Valley TV in Lansford, Pa., a 1950 industry pioneer, picks up New York and Philadelphia as well as Scranton; TelePrompTer plans a Farmington, N. Mex., system that will use twelve microwave relays to bring in Los Angeles, 800 miles away. Cable TV's profitability also upsets the telephone companies, which rent the poles for CATV cables at modest costs. The onetime $1.50-$2 charge per pole has risen to $3-$5. Southern Bell recently announced that it would limit new CATV service, but in some instances is willing to lease its own equipment for CATV.

With rural areas pretty well covered, CATV companies are now turning to the cities. To overcome skyscraper ghost effects and provide the strong reception that good color TV requires, TelePrompTer has filed an application for a franchise to equip any of 625,000 Manhattan households with cable reception. If the idea succeeds in New York, it may spread to other cities. Indeed, cable TV companies optimistically foresee a system in which television will no longer depend on broadcast alone, but will be sent over a microwave-wire combination everywhere in the U.S.

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