Broadcasters Give New TV System Static

Anew television technology is on its way that promises to dazzle viewers with brighter, sharper images, wider screens and lush digital sounds.

For broadcasters and trade officials, that’s a frightening prospect.

The technology is called high-definition television, and it is expected to burst into the U.S. market by 1990 in an array of TV sets, videocassettes and VCRs, video disks and disk players. In 1991, analysts predict, some cable companies will begin transmitting high-definition programs to viewers.

Only an affluent few are expected to buy the products at first, since sets will probably run about $3,500. But prices are expected to come down rapidly, bringing the new hardware within the reach of most Americans.

Competition Feared

And that’s what scares broadcasters. While there are several high-definition TV systems under development, so far no one has perfected a way to broadcast high-definition signals from transmitters to TV sets. Broadcasters, who have been already been losing viewers to cable and videocassettes, fear competition from this premium-quality product may cost them even more of their audiences.

“It’s likely to make broadcast television a second-class service, for a few years at least,” says Joseph Flaherty, CBS vice president of engineering and development. “Broadcasters will be tied to a technically inferior system, like AM broadcasters were when FM came along.”

And since the most fully developed technology has been built by--who else?--the Japanese, trade officials fear that its advent may add billions a year to the nation’s trade deficit.

U.S. broadcasters have kept a nervous eye on the developing technology for some time. But they were jolted in 1985 when a demonstration by Japan Broadcast Co. revealed that Japan’s 20-year high-definition television research effort was bearing fruit.

“It was shocking,” said Ben Crutchfield, an official of the National Assn. of Broadcasters.

Since then, the Japanese have accelerated their efforts to make the new technology a worldwide standard. The first high-definition products here are likely to bear such brands as Sony and Matsushita, but about three dozen other manufacturers are also at work building compatible products.

Japanese high-definition TV equipment is increasingly used in the production end of the business, in studios in the United States and abroad. Film makers are using it for rock music videos, commercials, TV shows and movies.

Competitors Delighted

As its uses have expanded, American researchers have stepped up their lagging efforts to find a home-grown alternative that will suit broadcasters’ needs. No fewer than half a dozen research groups are at work trying to find a way to allow so-called terrestrial broadcasting of high-definition TV signals.

While the new technology has spread panic among broadcasters, it has delighted their competitors in the cable television business. Executives of pay-TV networks see high-definition as a means of setting their service apart from--and, naturally, above--programming offered by over-the-air broadcast.

“The technology is perfectly suited for cable,” said Robert Zitter, vice president for network operations at Home Box Office, the Time Inc. unit. “What we offer is premium programming, and that’s what this is.”

Few technical hurdles stand in the way of cable distribution of high-definition programming. And since any programming shot with 35-millimeter film can easily be adapted for high-definition TV use, cable programmers will almost instantly have huge libraries of “software.”

Film’s easy adaptability will also enhance the value of the Hollywood studios’ film libraries. It will help justify the steep $1.5 billion paid by Ted Turner last year when he purchased MGM/UA Entertainment Co., which includes the 2,500-title MGM film collection.

Naturally, high-definition TV will also spur sales for companies that provide “package video”--videocassettes and video disks.

While companies in these business contemplate the promise of new riches, broadcasters worry that the technology will sharpen their rivalry with cable in several ways.

They fear that cable companies, once equipped to transmit high-definition signals, will gain the financial leverage to outbid them for key programming, such as locally originated sports shows.

Possible Shift to Pay-TV

“With high-definition technology, they can depend on a bigger audience, and they can justify bidding more for the shows,” said Harry Pappas, chief executive of Pappas Telecasting, a broadcast chain based in Fresno. “If we lost the rights to Fresno State University football, it would hurt.”

Broadcasters such as Pappas contend that the new technology may threaten the traditional dominance of free, over-the-air broadcasting, since it might shift more and more premium programming to pay services. “A lot of programming that has been available to everyone would just be available to those who could afford the service,” Pappas said.

Another fear of broadcasters is that the world will accept the Japanese system, or another system that is incompatible with their production and transmission equipment, and they will be forced to replace their multibillion-dollar investment in equipment.

But efforts to develop a system that they would prefer face technical and political obstacles.

Broadcasters want a system that will not only be compatible with their current equipment, but will also yield a picture as stunning as the Japanese system and will not require more space on the frequency spectrum than they now use.

The Federal Communications Commission allows broadcasters to use a certain narrow slice of the frequency spectrum to beam the information that becomes TV picture and sound when it is received by television sets.

Several of the proposed systems would need only a single conventional broadcast channel to produce a high-definition picture. Among such proposals are one announced Oct. 1 by RCA-NBC researchers and a second that is under development by entrepreneur Richard J. Iredale of Marina del Rey.

But it will be difficult to squeeze all the information needed to produce high-definition pictures into that narrow range, researchers say. Japanese scientists, who didn’t need to concern themselves about band width, used five times as much space for their Muse system.

And some researchers believe that the industry should try to secure additional frequency space in any case, so that there is space to squeeze in additional information as the technology is improved in years ahead.

Political Questions

“The technology we’re looking at now may be very unsophisticated compared to what’s ahead,” said CBS’s Flaherty. “You need room to grow.”

A system under development by William Glenn, a scientist at New York Institute of Technology, relies on 1 1/2 conventional channels. Another, proposed by North American Philips, a unit of the Dutch electronics giant N. V. Philips, would use two channels for each high-definition transmission.

But such solutions raise political questions, since the FCC would have to reallocate frequencies to accommodate the broadcasters’ additional need for frequencies. And frequency space is in demand by others, including broadcasters who want to start new stations and the fast-growing mobile telephone industry.

The FCC has frozen applications for frequency space in 20 markets while it studies the broader issues involved in high-definition broadcasting. FCC officials say that they consider the subject a high priority.

Broadcaster Pappas estimates that it would cost stations between $4 million and $10 million each to convert to a new production and transmission system. Big metropolitan stations could absorb such expenses, but they might be backbreaking for many of the smaller stations that have sprung up around the country in recent years, broadcasters note.

A group of 10 TV station chains has recently agreed to contribute to a research effort proposed by Gaylord Broadcasting, an Oklahoma City concern. Last month, the National Assn. of Broadcasters announced plans for its own research effort.

The broadcasters would like to convince the Japanese to start working on research to find a new system that would meet their needs. Failing that, some broadcasters are talking about trying to get the federal government to erect tariff barriers that would keep out the Muse system while U.S. industry develops a separate high-definition technology.

Trade Balance Effects Seen

“They’ve kept out DAT (digital audio tape), and they can do it here, too,” said Hal Protter, a Gaylord Broadcasting vice president and general manager of the chain’s WVTV-TV in Milwaukee.

Federal officials, while rejecting talk of tariffs, acknowledge their concern about the effects that the new technology may have on the trade balance. Commerce Department officials estimate that sales of high-definition television equipment could reach $100 billion a year as consumers buy the new products and the entertainment industry switches to new cameras, editing and transmission equipment.

With General Electric’s sale of its GE and RCA consumer electronics units to French-owned Thomson S.A., it seems unlikely that that American manufacturers will have a major chunk of the market for the new products. (If RCA’s research effort succeeds, RCA would receive substantial fees from the manufacturers it licenses.)

Zenith, the last American TV maker, “would participate if and when the technology emerges,” said a spokesman. But he acknowledged that Zenith does not have a research effort currently under way.

Government officials hope to interest U.S. companies from a variety of industries to collaborate on a system, since high-definition TV is expected to have a range of uses. Researchers expect high-definition television will be used in the printing business for image reproduction, by retailers for point-of-sale displays and by doctors to enlarge image tissues, for example.

“If we can get these diverse interests together, I think this country can take part,” said Alfred C. Sikes, an assistant secretary of commerce. “We can’t let ourselves become a sort of technological colony.”