Word: columbus
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Warner Cable Corp. is testing in Columbus a "two-way" cable system that enables viewers to talk back to their sets by pressing buttons on a hand-held console (price: $10.95). The programs are local news and talk shows on which performers ask questions of the audience. Every seven seconds a master computer scans the 30,000 homes getting the service and tallies how many are pressing a yes and how many a no button; the response totals are flashed on the screen...
Thus, at a town meeting last July, a local planning body took votes on zoning and other questions among citizens watching at home as well as those in the hall. Later, Ralph Nader, visiting Columbus, asked how many watchers would back a petition to change children's advertising (an overwhelming majority pushed the yes button). Advertisers are also making heavy use of the system. Bill Cosby, pitching for Ford Pintos, asks how many viewers want more information on the car; Ford gets a computer printout of hot prospects who voted...
...system is very expensive, and rival cable operators doubt that it can be made to pay. But it is already having an impact on cable programming outside Columbus. In March, Warner began selling to cable operators nationwide 13 hours a day of children's programming, approved by Columbus viewers, under the general name Nickelodeon. Sample shows: Pinwheel for preschoolers, featuring puppets, mime and dance; Video Comic Books, showing pages of the Green Lantern and Space Ranger with dialogue balloons, voice-overs and sound effects; and America Goes Bananaz for teenagers, a mix of zany comedy and rap sessions about...
...Columbus, Ohio, Mayor Tom Moody is doing more than that to counter the Pentagon's plans to ship about 1,400 men out of nearby Rickenbacker Air Force Base. Moody and colleagues have set up a committee to find uses for a deserted base. So far four companies have said they might be interested...
Wellston, Ohio, a town of 6,000, 75 miles southeast of Columbus, is short on cash and long on potholes; about 10,000 of them pit Wellston's 44 miles of streets. When former Police Chief Max Downard burst a tire in a particularly jagged chasm, he jokingly proposed to Mayor Harold Souders that the town sell its potholes to help raise the $70,000 needed to repair last winter's wear and tear. After the suggestion was reported in the paper, says Souders, "a woman walked in with a check for two potholes." Then another woman came...