Word: dish
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Only a few years ago, satellite-dish antennas were curiosities of the communications age, sprouting up near laboratories and in an occasional rural backyard where TV reception was poor. Nosy neighbors used to wonder if the person owning one might even be a spy. No longer. Suddenly the dishes, or earth stations, as they are called, are a booming industry...
Some 60,000 of them are being sold each month, and industry officials predict that the 1.2 million dish systems now installed will multiply to 10 million by 1990. Prices have declined sharply. Five years ago, a good system cost between $10,000 and $20,000; similar dishes today go for less than...
...Dish owners enjoy a staggering variety of programs. Not only can they receive all the regular and cable channels, but they get a potpourri of other broadcasts riding the satellite waves. Some of these are not put out by regular channels. Viewers can watch Johnny Carson audience warm-ups that never make NBC's Tonight Show, for example, or N.F.L. football games blacked out in their area. A top-of-the-line dish can even pull in Soviet TV, complete with news programs, ballet, and tank demonstrations...
Last week the dish industry's organization, SPACE (Society for Private Commercial Earth Stations), held its national convention at Nashville's Opryland Hotel, attracting about 14,000 participants and 700 exhibits. General Satellite of Slinger, Wis., displayed a "complete backyard system" for $370. "It includes everything except the television," said Company Representative Jack Krisel...
...main talk of the show, though, was about static heading across the airwaves for satellite-dish owners. Cable-system operators, like Tele- Communications Inc., are upset that the backyard stations are receiving for free what subscribers pay monthly fees to view. Pay-cable channels, including Time Inc.'s Home Box Office and Viacom's Showtime, are also miffed. Whereas cable subscribers pay extra monthly fees for these movie and special-events channels, dish owners can bypass cable and receive them free of charge...