Eddy Hartenstein, president of DirecTv, was very pleased with the Federal Communications Commission's decision to withhold a restrictive small dish ordinance by the City of Meade, Kan.
Hartenstein believes the decision was a very important step in keeping the growth of the satellite industry at a steady pace.
Hartenstein also believes the ruling will give the viewer more power to choose from a number of multichannel home entertainment services.
This ruling should strike up competition amongst the program-mers and in the long run give the subscriber a better programming package. PanAmSat's Satellites Ready For Lift-Off
Two PanAmSat satellites are undergoing the final touches for their scheduled launches in August. PAS-5 is scheduled to lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakh-stan on August 22 and PAS-6 is scheduled to lift off from Guiana Space Center in Korou on August 8th.
The two satellites combined will increase PanAmSat's Latin America capacity by around 130 percent. Together the two PanAmSat satellites will contain 60 Ku-band trans-ponders. PAS-5 will also carry 24 C-band transponders for audio and video communications to Latin America.
At the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications show DirecTv announced many new partnerships.
These partnerships include a joint venture with Host Marriott Services to deliver DSS pro-gramming to 63 airports. This pro-gramming has the potential to reach around 60 million people at Host Marriott bars and lounges in such cities as Los Angeles, Cleveland and New York.
World Satellite has also paired up with DirecTv to offer DirecTv programming to it's private cable operator customer base which includes more than 3,000 multi-dwelling unit properties across the U.S.
DirecTv is also working with it's programming partner, USSB, to promote EASe software, a program designed to manage the increasing DSS subscriber base.
In late July General instruments finalized the separation of GI into three separate public companies.
The new companies are NextLevel Systems, the component supplier and communications com-pany that also supplies home satellite related equipment, CommScope, the cable manufacturing company, and General Semiconductor, the com-pany that produces voltage sup-pressors and power rectifiers.
Richard S. Friedman, former chairman and CEO of General Instruments, received the title of chairman and CEO of NextLevel Systems, Ronald A. Ostertag was named chairman and CEO of General Semiconductor and Frank M. Drendel was named chairman and CEO of CommScope.
General Instruments stocks will be handled as follows; For each outstanding GI stock, holders will receive one-third share of Comm-Scope, one-quarter share of General Semiconductor and one full share of NextLevel Systems common stock.
Mobil Communications Holdings has selected Orbital Sciences to be the chief contractor for the companies $400 million Ellipso "Big LEO" world wide communications system
The agreement specifies for Orbital to design, develop, construct and test the 17 Ellipso satellites.
The transmission of high-quality digital voice and fax communications will be made possible by the Ellipso system through telecommunications equipment at a low cost to the user.
The system should be up and running by the year 2000.
Members of the House Telecommunications subcommittee were notified in late July that multichannel providers believed they were being restricted from pro-gramming sources, especially those controlled by cable TV.
DirecTv, Ameritech New Media, BellSouth and CellularVision were all represented at a hearing in which the four companies pleaded for legislation to be written to overturn the problem. However cable interests responded quickly by saying the companies should take on pro-gramming commitments of their own.
What Billy Tauzin, chairman of the subcommittee, believed would be a discussion of technical problems that hinder competition for cable turned out to be a rather heated discussion.
Eddie Hartenstien, president of DirecTv, stated that cable TV has yet to receive serious competition from his company and others. Although DirecTv has been successful over the past three years, they have needed the continuing support from congress and the FCC. Hartenstein believes that until local markets for the delivery of video programming are competitive, the FCC and Congress should be persistent in shutting down attempts by cable TV providers to suppress multichannel video com-petition. He also believes continuing program access and reinforcing its terms should be added to FCC regulations.
President and CEO of the National Cable Television Assoc-iation, Decker Anstrom, thought it was an interesting idea to add more regulations, especially after the Congress wanted to deregulate the marketplace. Anstrom continued to add that cable TV competition should spend more money building their own programming.
The National Football League has been awarded $3.2 million at the expense of New York Satellite Communications for aiding com-mercial establishments in unlawfully receiving NFL games.
Eric and Mark Greenstein, both satellite dealers, were caught selling residential subscriptions to com-mercial facilities in the Long Island area rather than charging them the commercial rate that lawfully should be applied to commercial estab-lishments.
The judge awarded the NFL $200,000 for each occurrence as well as court costs and attorney fees.
DirecTv has decided to offer free DSS equipment to over 15,000 former AlphaStar subscribers in the continental U.S. who have lost programming due to the demise of the fallen Tee-Comm unit.. DirecTv is offering the complete package of an 18 inch dish, receiver, and remote control if they agree to sign up for a Total Choice package.
DirecTv wasted no time in making this deal available, it was at hand within hours of AlphaStar turning off it's signal. AlphaStar customers must also pay for installation of the DSS equipment through an affiliate of O'Rourke Bros. or Satellite Receivers Ltd, pay all aplicatable taxes, shipping and handling.
Another incentive for former AlphaStar subscribers to join DirecTv is discounts on other promotions such as the 97' NFL Sunday Ticket offer that is now available at a 50 percent discount.
The first ever fully digital television station in the U.S. will be built in Honolulu by Argyle Television Inc.
KITV-TV, an ABC affiliate in Honolulu, will be moving in to the newly built, fully digital station in December and begin the trans-mission of Digital Advanced Tele-vision or ATV.
As long as all necessary permits are obtained, the digital signal will begin transmission on December 1, 1997. However high definition tele-vision, also known as HDTV, will not be sent out over the air ways until the ABC network can achieve a high definition signal.
With new digital technology, KITV will be allowed to transmit around four programs at the same time as well as offer internet access and other data transmissions.
It all started on May 27th when AlphaStar's liabilities of $105 mil-lion overrode their $72 million in assets, forcing them to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Shortly after, AlphaStar parent Tee-Comm, defaulted on a loan payment and fell into receivership by the Bank of Montreal.
For over a month after the filing AlphaStar operated as debtors-in-possesion and continued to provide their subscribers with programming.
Then AlphaStar Television Network along with other Tee-Comm Electronics assets were placed on the bidding table by the U.S. bankruptcy court in Delaware.
Assets were separated into 11 different categories including the U.S. business, the Canadian bus-iness, the Loral satellite contract, the Toronto-area uplink facility, the Connecticut uplink facility, U.S. subscribers, Canadian subscribers and a large inventory of hardware.
No single entity from the United States was allowed to bid on the Canadian Company because Can-adian law limits foreign ownership of a Canadian Company to 33.3 percent and only allows a 20 percent voting stake.
The court appointed receiver, Ernst & Young, along with the manager of both Tee-Comm Elec-tronics Inc. and AlphaStar Canada Inc. then announced that no accep-table bids were made for Tee-Comm assets and subsidiaries in Canada and the U.S.. Although claims were made that five parties were still interested in the purchase of the U.S. company the deadline had already passed. Due to the lack of an acceptable bid that would have kept the business running the company was forced to fall back on its backstop deal with Loral SpaceCom Corpor-ation.
The Loral backstop deal, which was approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and the Ontario Court, con-sisted of the immediate return of transponders on Telstar 402R and Telstar5
Initially a date was set for the medium powered service to go off the air on Thursday August 7th, 1997, but remaining AlphaStar executives did their best to cushion the fall of the company by working out a deal to keep the service on the air for an additional 24 hours.
On Friday, August 8th, 1997 at 3:00 a.m., AlphaStar Canada Inc. and the U.S. based AlphaStar Tele-vision Network were forced to ter-minate their broadcasting signals.
With the fall of AlphaStar, 51,000 former customers were left in the dark. 60 percent of those customers are located in such places as Canada, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean with less than one third located in the United States.
The Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association said that, despite the Alphastar predic-ament, the home satellite industry will remain a strong competitor in the multichannel marketplace