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An
exploration of terrestrial broadcast, by
Ken
Freed Part
2 of 2 Once
a television production is "in the can" (to borrow
a film term), the fun really begins. The selection
of appropriate distribution channels for video
programming depends on the content and format. A
great programme can fail just as miserably as a
lousy programme if distributed through the wrong
channels. Understanding the technologies used for
television content distribution can help determine
the best venue for any given educational programme
or series. [CONTINUED FROM PART
1] SATELLITE
DISTRIBUTION OF ETV PROGRAMMES While
satellite television service has more market
penetration than cable in the UK (the opposite of
the situation in Europe and the USA), the stronger
satellite position does little to benefit
educational TV programmers. Multichannel satellite
services do not allot as much of their capacity to
educational content as the cable operators.
Satellite system operators see entertainment as
their core business, and since they do not have to
overcome any negative stereotypes like "the cable
guy," delivering educational content is just a nice
way for the satcasters to score some public
relations points. There are exceptions in the
industry, but they are few. One possible reason for
the focus on entertainment in the satellite
industry may be the penetrating influence of Rupert
Murdoch. Entertainment not education is his highest
priority. The only educational content carried on
BSkyB is the overnight Learning Zone programming on
BBC2 and the "edutainment" programmes on such
American cable services as Discovery. Instead,
BSkyB is banking on the popularity of MTV and an
endless stream of sports, such as Premier League
Soccer, for which Murdoch paid $1 billion to obtain
exclusive broadcast rights. No such investment
exist in educational content on BSkyB, as of this
writing. The other direct to home (DTH) service
providers in Europe may be more favorably disposed
toward education, but the revenue stream from
entertainment still takes precedence. For the educational
content producer trying to deal with the situation,
much of the technical knowledge gained about
terrestrial broadcasting and cablecasting can be
applied to satcasting. The video production factors
are the same, and many of distribution factors are
the same, including the compression methods and
many of the set-top box capabilities. Also, both
broadcast and cable systems operators use
satellites to send and receive programs from one
production center to the next. The key difference
here is that the DTH services use satellites to
deliver content directly to their customers. This
factor makes all the difference in the
world. Satellite
Technology Rather than the signals
being radiated from antenna towers or transmitted
down cable/fiber lines with a pulsing laser, the
digital signals are shipped skyward from giant
transmitter dishes to bounce off satellites in
geostationary orbits. Each broadcast satellite
features several transponders that are tasked to
redirect 14 to 17 channels each from a specific
ground source into a signal cone covering a wide
geographic area, the "footprint," which can
encompass thousands of square kilometers. While the
BSkyB operating license only pertains to Great
Britain, the footprint for BSkyB satellite signals
cover the whole of Europe. BSkyB's most outstanding
competitor on the continent, Canal+, while only
serving 1.5 million subscribers in France,
nevertheless enjoys a pan-European footprint.
In the USA, the reason why
Denver has become the capital for American DTH
services DirecTV and EchoStar is that the city
rests along the spine of Rocky Mountains on the
105th meridian, which means the satellites directly
overhead have a footprint that covers all of the
United States and major portions of both Canada and
Mexico. This broadcast system means that DTH
services (also called DBS services, for direct
broadcast satellite) do not have the huge expense
of constructing cable plants in every location they
service. Instead, the DTH provider merely needs to
find outlets to rent, lease, or sell their
satellite dishes to local customers. And now that
the receiving dishes are barely a meter across, not
giant bowls up to ten meters across, dish sales are
much easier to make. The chief difference is
that satellite broadcasting is not two way,
severely limiting DTH to such low-level
"interactive" functions as an electronic program
guide or the one-way forms of ACTV, Wink and
related technologies. The only way DTH services can
offer video-on-demand is to pack the datastream
with all of the content from which the viewers may
choose a programme "on-demand." This is totally
different from cable, where the subscriber's
command is relayed to a video file server that
sends the exact content requested back to that
specific viewer. DTH is a broadcast service that
cannot differentiate among individual viewers. This
lack of true interactivity makes DTH unsuitable for
most distance learning applications, with the
exception of broadcasting old-fashioned static
telecourses. Satellite
Limitations When
the limitation of one-way service are pointed out
to DTH executives, they tend to become defensive
and insist that two way services are not really
needed. And they speak about how satellite services
have been providing digital clarity for years while
the cable guys are only now switching over from
analog to digital. The same kinds of thinks are
encountered when satellite executives are
challenged about the lack of local content among
the programming bounced off of satellites from some
remote location. People don't really want or expect
to get local content from their satellite service,
they argue, asserting that local customers don't
mind having to use the terrestrial antenna on their
rooftop to receive local stations. Still, a few DTH companies
talk of modifying their set-top boxes to
accommodate a phoneline return path, but the
infrastructure of satellite broadcasting makes the
implementation difficult, at best. DTH services
cover too wide an area to make a phoneline linkage
fiscally or physically feasible. DTH revenues
hardly justify the expense of setting up telephone
relay networks over a wide geographic area, and the
costs for 1-800 numbers proscribe that option. And
even if a message from the viewer could be routed
to DTH operators, as just discussed, the operators
lack the capability to bounce a single program off
the satellite for that viewer alone. Even if the
technological problems can be solved, the costs
make the effort unworkable, leaving educational TV
programmers having to treat DTH like plain old
TV. While satellite systems
suffer the disadvantage of not being able to
individuate subscribers, satellite systems enjoy an
advantage in being able to grant conditional access
to selected groups of subscribers. Many
corporations have established private satellite
networks carrying encrypted communication channels
that often are employed for staff training and
development. A sales training session telling the
international marketing team about the hush-hush
plans for a product launch can be made even more
secure by keeping secret the exact identity of the
satellite transponder being used for the training
programme. A more commercial yet still educational
application of the private network concept is The
People's Channel in the United States. Promoted
through multilevel network marketing, the service
offers a 24-hour channel of instructional and
inspirational speakers for about $1 a day. The slow
growth of the venture may be explained by the fact
a subscription to a cable or satellite service
delivers dozens and now hundreds of channels at the
same price. Predictably, the pyramid marketing
mentality balks at this truth. Standards
Conflicts Satellite
television transmission also offers a penultimate
example of the do-or-die conflict between open and
closed technical standards. On one side is the DVB
(digital video broadcast) open-architecture
transmission system used by BSkyB, Canal+ and the
other major satellite broadcasters in Europe along
with America's third largest satellite service, the
Dish Network (owned by EchoStar). DVB also is being
used by European cable companies. On the opposing
side is the DSS (digital satellite service)
proprietary transmission system chosen by the North
American satcasting services PrimeStar (owned by
TCI) and DirecTV (owned by Hughes). Consumers with a DSS dish
and receiver cannot access any programming satcast
from a DVB service, and vise verse, but any person
with a DVB dish and receiver can change from one
DVB service to another without having to trade in
the home equipment. When a subscriber changes
services, of couse, encryuption and conditional
access adjustments must be made, but there is no
need to swap out the receiver. This is why DVB
subscription services (in the USA, at least) ask
their customers to buy the dish and receiver,
telling them they can still use these home products
if they change satellite companies. The DSS
services instead can only rent their dishes and
set-top receivers (the cable TV model) since their
customers don't want to be stuck with useless
hardware if they ever cancel their DSS
subscriptions. Observing this situation,
an educational content producers may be wise to
affiliate themselves with DVB services over DSS
services. An exclusive contract with a DSS
satellite company means real limitations on one's
global reach. Why would any educator be willing to
make the DVB services "off limits" when open
systems are fast becoming the preferred world
standard? Educators who feel enthusiasm for
television and the new media generally feel excited
because they can imagine themselves using the
medium to reach the masses. They want to teach the
most number of people they can possibly teach, that
is, with any measurable degree of effectiveness. If
they think otherwise, they likely are being driven
by ego instead of vision, and intelligent investors
stay away from such "education" schemes. WIRELESS
CABLE DISTRIBUTION OF ETV PROGRAMMES Beyond
broadcast, cable and satellite services, another
venue opening for the distribution of educational
content is the microwave television industry, the
ten-year old brainchild of US cable television
pioneer Robert Schmidt, who dubbed the technology
as "wireless cable." Called MMDS (multipoint
multichannel distribution system), the wireless
cable architecture is modeled on the architecture
of a cellular telephone service. Microwave antennas
on towers and rooftops provide line-of-sight
coverage anywhere within the service area, which
can be as large as a major metropolitan city and
suburbs. To receive the MDS signal, the subscriber
needs a small flat antenna, as small as 16 inches
square, which feeds into an addressable set-top box
identical to a cable set-top box. The nature of
microwave systems permit wireless cable services to
offer the same digital quality as any DTH service,
giving them a leg up over the landline cable
operators. And the MDS services have an advantage
over the DTH services in that they can cluster
their cells for two-way interactivity with minimal
additional expense. The Wireless
Gamble Like
the landline cable operators, wireless cable
operators are betting their future on the
deployment "wireless cable modems" that receive
broadband downstream signal by microwave and then
use a phoneline or cellphone link to send upstream
the narowband data burst on what to send
downstream. Although wireless cable modems are
being marketed for high-speed Internet access by
companies in the USA like Schmidt's own National
Digital Network, the long-term strategy is to
incorporate the modem into their digital set-tops
for the delivery of interactive TV services as the
market matures enough to repay the full cost of
deployment. Robert Schmidt also is
notable here because he has voiced a strong
commitment to education, acting on that promise by
equipping schools in his service areas with
wireless cable modems for student Internet access.
Such contributions to learning have not yet become
policy at the larger wireless cable companies, such
as CAI Wireless and People's Choice TV, which view
edutainment cable programming as a safer route to
profitability. In a few isolated community systems,
however, the schools are being accorded a channel
for transmitting content they have
produced. The arrangements are
similar to cable company franchise deals where the
system operator agrees to provide community service
in exchange for a local monopoly. To help inspire
more participation, the Wireless Cable Association
offered an award to honor excellence in wireless
educational programming. The promise of
industry-wide profitability is further bolstered by
the interest in wireless cable technology from the
major telephone companies, such as Qwest and SBC,
who can leverage their existing cellular telephony
infrastructure for entry into video services.
Penetration remains low, however, at 1 percent in
the USA with 1 million subscribers. There now are 5
million subscribers worldwide, mostly in Latin
America and Eastern Europe where cellular phone
systems are being built in developing nations in
preference to more expensive hardwire phone
architectures. As of this writing, according to the
Wireless Cable Association, Ireland has a small MDS
system but the United Kingdom has none. None of
these other nations is using MMDS for education
with the vigor of the United States. Wireless Past and
Future The
reason why educators and educational content
producers can take heart involves knowing a bit of
industry history. Before multichannel wireless
cable services began, the industry was called
simply MDS for Multipoint Distribution Service,
which began in the mid-Seventies with FCC
allocation of two 6 MHz channels (2,150 to 2,162
MHz) for entertainment programming. One early MDS
channel was Home Box Office (HBO), which in 1975
changed the TV business forever by moving to
satellite and becoming the first premium movie
channel. To compete in the emerging
multichannel environment, MDS operators sought to
use an additional 31 channels (2,500 to 2,686 MHz),
the same channels originally assigned to
educational institutions for Instructional
Television Fixed Services (ITFS). In the early
eighties, the FCC allocated eight of these channels
for use by wireless cable under the official name
of MMDS. Wireless cable operators could lease the
remaining 23 ITFS channels from the educational
license-holders, said the FCC, providing the
wireless cable operators broadcast up to 40 hours
of educational programming per week on those
channels, allowing every MMDS operator to deliver
as many as 33 channels of analog television
programming. To avoid signal
interference from neighboring stations, each MMDS
licensee was granted by the FCC a "Protected
Service Area" of 15 miles. This was extended to 35
miles in 1996 when the FCC defined "Basic Trading
Areas" for auctioning off the MMDS spectrum in 493
markets in the entire USA. Incumbent licensees
could continue to operate as before, but most
purchased the surrounding BTA to expand their
service area or protect themselves from other
license holders. A1996 FCC declaratory
ruling gave MMDS operators permission to begin
digital operations, which means digital compression
and an exponential growth in the number of
available channels. While most of the digital
channels are being used for entertainment, a goodly
portion are being set aside for high-speed wireless
Internet access, and schools often are the
beneficiaries. This fact is good news for
educators, yet the 40 percent rule for the ITFS
channels was dropped. Now these channels must carry
about 20 hours per week of educational content. The
mandate is interpreted loosely in some locales,
however, so any children's programming, including
the "action" cartoon shows, seems to qualify. Other
wireless operators take the rule more seriously and
have donated television production equipment to the
school districts in their service areas. For the
many supporters of educational TV programmes
targeting American students, here is a basis for
hope. Therefore, while wireless
cable still shows a small market share, the ground
floor opportunities in this industry are hard to
ignore by anyone in the ETV business. The American
commitment to educational MMDS is lacking in
Europe, but the hope of this changing seems strong.
As Internet access increasingly becomes an
influence in the deployment of interactive wireless
cable services worldwide, one can reasonably expect
educational television to receive a boost in the
process. INTERNET
DISTRIBUTION OF ETV CONTENT As
if broadcast, cable, satellite, and microwave
methods of delivering educational TV content were
not enough delivery options (don't forget tapes or
disks) one more method exists for distributing
educational materials to a television set -- The
Internet. With MPEG compression and
other technologies, any educational video
programming now available on the television can be
downloaded or streamed to the computer screen. But
what about the TV screen? The Internet is now
accessible on the television through such services
as WebTV and a handful of lesser competitors.
Market penetration remains meager. Only 75,000
WebTV units priced near $250 each have sold in the
USA by the third quarter of sales since the product
launch in early 1997. Penetration approaching 20
percent of all TV household is being anticipated by
2002, according to Jupiter Communications in New
York. This projection is good news to Sony and
Philips, the only world media companies so far with
licenses to produces the WebTV consumer units, but
this is still far short of the critical mass needed
to turn the TV into a primary vehicle for Internet
access. Only mass production of the new digital
television sets might achieve a convergence of the
PC and TV (see next chapter). WebTV uses a "push"
technology that bundles a collection of popular
websites under the banner of "The WebTV Network,"
positioned as an online service like Compuserve,
and transmits those websites by phoneline into the
home. The sites are selected on the basis of
consumer interest along with how well the text and
graphics translate to the television screen. A
two-way 33.6k modem is built into the WebTV box, so
users can surf the World Wide Web with the unit,
but a TV screen breaks up computer-based text and
graphics because of core differences in pixel
scanning methods, making this function
aesthetically disagreeable. To be considered for
inclusion in the WebTV lineup, developers must pay
a $750 fee to WebTV to join their developer's
group, a fee that effectively excludes most of the
low-end website creators. Developers also must
agree to modify their text and graphics for display
on a TV screen. Since WebTV does not support Java,
JavaScript, ActiveX, Shockwave, and other animation
MIME types, the sites on the service tend to be
rather static. Further, WebTV does not support
MPEG-1 video, which effectively excludes
educational TV producers who might imagine using
the service to as a means of adding interactivity
to their video content. PROFITABILITY
ISSUES IN ETV DISTRIBUTION What
questions must be asked and answered by the reader
seeking a fair return on any investment in a
company involved in distributing educational TV
content?The same as when evaluating the content
production ventures, first determine if the quality
of justifies the total costs of delivering content
by that method. Also determine if the number of
learners being reached by that method justifies the
expense of reaching them through that venue.
Answers here are seldom
cut and dried. For example, cable, satellite and
wireless services deliver higher quality video and
audio for very little cost per programme. But to
reach the point of being ready for programme
carriage, millions of pounds or dollars must be
spent in creating the delivery infrastructure.
Recovering those costs rides on multiple revenue
streams, most of them flowing from consumers, who
may not be sanguine about paying one company for
TV, Internet, and telephone access when presented
with the total monthly bill for all three services.
Subscription TV operators may try to deflect this
concern with separate credit card or smart card
charges for each activity, perhaps isolating every
video-on- demand purchase with a pay-per-view
billing system, but consumers aren't fools, or at
least they won't be fooled for long. Therefore, a
wise investor needs to think through these
considerations and reach reasonable conclusions
about the probable consumer acceptance of the
delivery venue targeted for investment. Related issues apply if
the reader is a content producer attempting to
determine which mode of delivery is best. Going
with one venue may restrict access to other venues.
For instance, the cable industry has been accused
of warning programme suppliers that their
programming will not be purchased if the producers
also sell their content to the wireless cable
companies. Pending proof of this accusation in a
court of law, one hesitates to state beyond
reasonable doubt that cable operators are guilty of
antitrust infringement, but the smart producer
reads between the lines in their contracts and
consults a reliable solicitor before signing away
any rights. In general, check the
record of content distributors before investing or
before signing a distribution contract. Ascertain
if the distributor either pays or charges any
hidden fees that may effect content carriage. Take
nothing for granted. A smile and a handshake may be
enough in the village marketplace, but not in the
television business. (c)
1998-2005
by
Ken
Freed.
Based on the book, Financial
Opportunities in Educational
Television, by Judah Ken Freed. . New
in the CASTING
THE NET OVER GLOBAL
LEARNING An
comprehensive overview of critical advances in k-12
and higher education along with corporate training
and lifelong learning.
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