Video Age International articles from October 1998

Video Age International archives from October 1998

Webcasting: the new frontier?(includes related articles)
October 1, 1998... TV programs broadcast over the Internet are poised to become a major business Picture this scene. You're in Cannes at about 8 a.m. You're waiting for the 11 p.m. news on KING-TV, broadcast from Seattle to your [Webtv.sup.*] set (all terms...

MOWs exploding on many TV screens.
October 1, 1998... It used to be that when one thought about producers of MOWs and mini-series for network and cable, a dozen names would keep popping up. Nowadays, it's hard to keep track. The business is changing. Some of the traditional made-for-TV movie...

My two cents.(multimedia convergence)(Column)
October 1, 1998... Multimedia sectors in many countries now face the impossible task of having to reach farsighted industrial reforms. At this point, I'm sorry to say, I tend to agree with CIR President Lawrence Gasman, who in his book Telecompetition: The Free...

HDTV demo time.(first demonstration of multiple high-definition television systems via satellite)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... More than a dozen top broadcasters and developers of high definition TV (HDTV) technology met in California recently for the first demonstration of multiple HDTV systems via satellite. The event was hosted by global satellite operator PanAmSat....

Indian broadcasters uplinked.(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... Private broadcasters in India have been given permission to use uplinking facilities to better improve news bulletins and other telecasts, according to Minister for Information and Broadcasting Sushma Swaraj. Indian government officials say...

Televisa in the news.(Grupo Televisa S.A.'s deals with 17 networks to exchange news stories)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... In a bid to expand its market share in Latin America, Grupo Televisa, Mexico's largest media empire, has inked deals with 17 networks in the region to exchange news stories. Eco, Televisa's news station, will broadcast local news reports from...

Pax attacks.(launching of Pax TV)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... Pax TV, the new family-friendly network, launched on August 31 after a conducting a few last-minute carriage deals. Earlier in the month, Paxson Communications Corporation, which runs Pax managed to secure carriage for the new channel with two...

ETAA meets in N.Y.(European Television Association of America's panel in New York)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... The newly formed European Television Association of America (ETAA) hosted a panel in New York entitled "From Three's Company to Jeopardy. The Hard Facts About the Format Business." The panel, sponsored by Sveriges Television and...

Eye on Japan's Sky.(subscription record of Sky*PerfecTV!)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... Sky*PerfecTV!, the Japanese digital DTH service, was closing in on the 800,000-subscriber mark at press time. Chairman Hajime Unoki said that the service hopes to have 1.5 million subscribers within two years and two million within three years....

Canada gets a first look.(Look Communications' digital television service in the greater Toronto area)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... Taking aim at Rogers Communications' cable dominance in Canada, Look Communications launched a digital television service in the greater Toronto area on August 4. Fueled by an aggressive advertising campaign, Look intends to expand across the...

Canadians address money mix-up.(Canada Television and Cable Production Fund)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... The Canada Television and Cable Production Fund (CTCPF), which gives out $200 million annually to Canadian TV producers, is scrambling to rectify a bureaucratic error that jeopardized several primetime dramas. The problem arose when...

CanWest ignites fireworks.(CanWest Global Communications)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... CanWest Global Communications has purchased Fireworks Entertainment, an independent TV production company, for $40 million. Under the terms of the sale, CanWest gained a controlling stake in Fireworks with a 72 percent equity interest and a 79...

An eye for Discovery.(Discovery Communications)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... The CBS Corporation recently agreed to take Discovery Communications on as a partner in its 24-hour cable channel CBS Eye on People. When the agreement is finalized, Discovery will become a managing partner in the channel, which will be...

Korean film quota incites debate.(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has found itself at the center of a film controversy. On July 24, Minister of State for Trade Han Duck-soo proposed the repeal of legislation that forces Korean cinemas to show local product...

Let's get interactive.(EnterMedia Network Co.'s interactive broadcast channel on EchoStar Communications Corp.'s DISH Network)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... The EchoStar Communications Corporation has agreed to carry the EnterMedia Network Company's interactive broadcast channel on its DBS satellite service, the DISH Network. EMNetwork, launched in July, is an interactive channel that offers...

Russia blocks TV pirates.(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... In an unprecedented move, the Russian Federal Television and Radio Service (FSTR) revoked the broadcast license of Alva, a local station in the city of Nizhevsk, for copyright infringement. Alva aired Francis Coppola's 1972 film The Godfather...

Made Possible By....(Review)
October 1, 1998... James Ledbetter's Made Possible By... (Verso, 280 pp.) has a suitably dramatic but somewhat misleading subtitle: "The Death of Public Broadcasting in the United States." Even squabbling metaphysicists will agree that something dead must once...

Unapix: an indie to be reckoned with.(Unapix International)(Company Profile)
October 1, 1998... New production unit fulfills multimedia dreams With all the megamergers taking place in the entertainment industry today, there are only a few distribution companies that can truly call themselves independent. Unapix Entertainment is one of...

MIPCOM lifts the maple leaf.
October 1, 1998... What's Canada Day all about, eh? The 14th edition of MIPCOM, held October 5-9, will pay special attention to the Canadian television industry. October 6 has been dubbed Canada Day in recognition of Canada's surge in TV production over the...

Reaching Americans in every time zone.(television in the military)
October 1, 1998... Almost every day, the trades report the launch of a new satellite-delivered television channel. But in the midst of all the fanfare, one deserving channel has received little attention, despite near-revolutionary changes in the way it...

Television driving licensing show.(Licensing '98 International)
October 1, 1998... As Godzilla's flat box office and merchandising receipts proved this summer, size doesn't always matter, even when a major studio labors to tell us otherwise. Licensing '98 International, the industry's annual gathering of licensors, licensees...

Promax discovers that Canada is not America.
October 1, 1998... Can Canada pass for the U.S. in the eyes of Americans? Promax, the Los Angeles-based association of promotion, marketing, advertising, creative services and public relations professionals, tried to find out by taking its main event north of the...

Low-cost, high-gain newsmagazines make headlines.
October 1, 1998... Throughout the spring and summer of 1998, television newsmagazine programs were making lots of news on their own. NBC announced that it was expanding Dateline to five nights a week in the fall. CBS got in on the act by jump-starting plans for a...

Trilateral agreement for European TV hegemony.(includes related article on the Kirch Group's finances)(Germany)
October 1, 1998... Rupert Murdoch is about to add mainland Europe to his global media empire. Despite frequent setbacks, he's not willing to give up Italy and Germany, the gatekeepers of the region. Now, after months of negotiating, he's got a foot in the door....

Vince Manze's must see TV is NBC after TV.
October 1, 1998... TV executives around the world are familiar with NBC's "Must-See TV" promotional campaign, but few are familiar with the man behind the slogan. Actually, the way Vince Manze, senior vp of Advertising and Promotion at NBC Entertainment,...

NATPE's view of Webcasting.(Webcasting)(National Association of Television Program Executives)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... The Internet is no longer the future - it is now. NATPE embraced this new technology three years ago and has been at the forefront of its development as it relates to the television programming industry. Webcasting streaming video...

The history of the Web.(Webcasting)(World Wide Web)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... The history of the World Wide Web begins in March 1989, when Tim Berners-Lee of the CERN laboratories in Geneva, Switzerland, circulated a proposal to develop a "hypertext system" for information sharing among researchers in different places....

Ad sales on the Web.(Webcasting)(advertising on the World Wide Web)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... In the U.S., 99.8 million households have televisions, while computers are in more than 40 percent of households; however, it is estimated that computer penetration will reach some 72 percent by 2002. There are now some 41 million U.S....

Producing a Webcast: the Bell Atlantic experience.(Webcasting)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... Bell Atlantic, the telco that provides local phone services for a good portion of the East Coast, has a Digital Production Studio (DPS) that is considered a leader in the area of Internet-based streaming video. The Studio specializes in...

Multicasting.(Webcasting)(simultaneous viewing of a World Wide Web site)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... Multicasting will require significant investment by Internet service providers and transmission companies. Media companies are on the prowl for Internet services or "portals" to the Web, since, without a multiple server operator, a Web...

The financial scene.(Webcasting)(Internet-related stocks)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... Small investors have discovered Internet-related stocks. According to Business Week, "any company that can identify itself with the Web has a winning stock." But even the top Internet companies are considered overvalued. ...

The Web future.(Webcasting)(World Wide Web)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... The TV industry, like the phone industry, operated for decades in a regulated environment. As a result, the top management of those businesses in many cases consists of people from the legal side or the financial side. Most of the Web...

Methods of connecting.(Webcasting)(Internet connection via telephone, cable, satellite or broadcast TV signals)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... Users can be connected to the Internet via telephone, via cable, via satellite or via broadcast TV signals. The goal of telephone companies is to achieve the fastest possible access speed without having to replace the phone wiring in the...

Microsoft's spider web.(Webcasting)(Microsoft Corp.'s acquisition of World Wide Web-related businesses)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... For a reported $15 million, Microsoft recently bought a 10 percent stake in Progressive Networks, whose RealAudio and RealVideo streaming technology are perceived to be better than Microsoft's own NetShow technology. Microsoft also bought...

Regulations.(Webcasting)(mergers in the telecommunications industry)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... Technically, media convergence should eliminate government regulation of media (see "My Two Cents" on Page 4). However, many mergers in the telecommunications field are now scrutinized with regard to the companies' combined Internet potential....

Why the Web killed CD-ROMs.(Webcasting)(World Wide Web)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... Many now believe that Webcasting will be responsible for the premature demise of home video stores. And with digital video discs (DVDs) being viewed primarily as a sell-through medium for supermarkets, this doomsday vision may not be too far...

International Webcasters Association gears up.(Webcasting)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... In an effort to unite the more than 2,000 Webcasters around the world, Peggy Miles, president of Internet broadcasting and digital consulting firm InterVox Communications, spearheaded the founding of The International Webcasters Association...

Capturing motion on the Web.(Webcasting)(World Wide Web)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... Several software programs are available for streaming media. Each Webcaster uses one or more systems, choosing from programs like RealPlayer, QuickTime, NetShow, CosmoPlayer, Shockwave Player, InterVU, VivoActive and others. RealPlayer's...

Program distribution on the Web.(Webcasting)(World Wide Web)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... In two years' time, it will be possible to market, sell and distribute film and TV programs to international buyers via the Internet. The system (we'll call it DistriWeb) would consist of Web pages describing the distributors' new shows. Under...

Webcasting and U.S. law.(Webcasting)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... The basic legal issues involving Webcasting are licensing and protection of copyrights online, and government regulation of the Internet. Like any international entrepreneurs, Webcasters also face such traditional business considerations as...

Webcasting at low cost.(Webcasting)(Brief Article)
October 1, 1998... It is now possible for consumers to obtain live video and audio on the Internet via the Vamoose plug-in adapter. Developed by New Hampshire-based Zulu Broadcasting, Video Vamoose plugs into any camcorder and streams live or...

Understanding video compression.(Webcasting)
October 1, 1998... The motor of digital video is compression. Compression is essential because, without it, transmitting full-motion 525-line video (used in the U.S.) would require a bandwidth of as much as 200 megabits per second. If this volume of data had to...