Tv Mushrooms in the Backyard

By Gordon M. Henry.

Only a few years ago, satellite-dish antennas were curiosities of the communications age, sprouting up near laboratories and in an occasional rural backyard where TV reception was poor. Nosy neighbors used to wonder if the person owning one might even be a spy. No longer. Suddenly the dishes, or earth stations, as they are called, are a booming industry.

Some 60,000 of them are being sold each month, and industry officials predict that the 1.2 million dish systems now installed will multiply to 10 million by 1990. Prices have declined sharply. Five years ago, a good system cost between $10,000 and $20,000; similar dishes today go for less than $5,000.

The appeal of the dishes transcends class and geographic boundaries. Dealers report brisk sales from Beverly Hills to Beverly, Mass. About 70% of them, though, are still found in rural communities, which often have bad television reception. In Appalachia, where for years hill folk put up towering antennas on top of houses or neighboring ridges, families are now buying basic $1,000 earth stations.

Dish owners enjoy a staggering variety of programs. Not only can they receive all the regular and cable channels, but they get a potpourri of other broadcasts riding the satellite waves. Some of these are not put out by regular channels. Viewers can watch Johnny Carson audience warm-ups that never make NBC's Tonight Show, for example, or N.F.L. football games blacked out in their area. A top-of-the-line dish can even pull in Soviet TV, complete with news programs, ballet, and tank demonstrations.

Last week the dish industry's organization, SPACE (Society for Private Commercial Earth Stations), held its national convention at Nashville's Opryland Hotel, attracting about 14,000 participants and 700 exhibits. General Satellite of Slinger, Wis., displayed a "complete backyard system" for $370. "It includes everything except the television," said Company Representative Jack Krisel.

The main talk of the show, though, was about static heading across the airwaves for satellite-dish owners. Cable-system operators, like Tele- Communications Inc., are upset that the backyard stations are receiving for free what subscribers pay monthly fees to view. Pay-cable channels, including Time Inc.'s Home Box Office and Viacom's Showtime, are also miffed. Whereas cable subscribers pay extra monthly fees for these movie and special-events channels, dish owners can bypass cable and receive them free of charge.

HBO has spent $15 million to develop a system that scrambles its satellite signal so that earth stations cannot receive a clear picture. In July, HBO became the first cable channel to send out a coded signal. Dish owners who want to watch HBO will be able to buy a descrambling device for $395 and then pay a monthly service fee. Showtime and Denver-based T.C.I., the country's largest operator of cable systems, will soon begin scrambling signals.

Some viewers are angry about the attempts to interrupt their free programs. Says Tom Walters, a dish dealer with Eton, Ga.-based International Satellite Systems: "You own anything which comes down in your yard, and you have a right to use it." But others say they are willing to pay cable programmers a fee so that they can continue enjoying their backyard cornucopia.

With reporting by Barbara Kraft/Los Angeles and Fred Travis/Nashville