TV & VIDEO - June 9, 1987

Movie-oriented pay cable channels and videocassette rental firms, once bitter enemies, are joining forces--at least in Fort Lauderdale and other cities in southern Florida. Cable companies in these cities are beaming lists of currently available videocassettes and allowing their customers to order the tapes via a touch-tone telephone. The movies ordered are then beamed to the customer through an unused cable-access channel. “No tapes, no getting in the car,” Steve Rosenberg, an analyst for Paul Kagan and Associates, said Sunday. “You pay and it shows up in your house.” Cable companies plan to offer the latest movies at the same time they become available for video sales and rental, which means they would beat pay-cable giants Showtime and HBO by several months.