Word: primestar
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Murdoch is already looking for alternatives to the EchoStar deal. He has held exploratory talks about gaining a share of Primestar, a competing satellite venture owned jointly by several cable companies, including TCI and Time Warner. Last week Murdoch broached the subject in a phone call to Time Warner's vice chairman, Ted Turner (with whom he has been feuding publicly), and had a face-to-face meeting with chairman Gerald Levin. His overtures to link up with Primestar, however, were rebuffed...
...think you can easily escape the dreaded cable companies. Tele-Communications Inc., the nation's largest cable operator, and No. 2 Time Warner, among others, own Primestar Partners of Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, the second largest dbs provider. TCI has begun to offer a $99 dish installation--half the usual price--to those consumers who sign up for two years...
...million of these currently have one of the older-generation big dishes.) But why would an urban cable customer be induced to switch to a dish? The home-satellite companies are trumpeting their higher-quality picture and CD-quality sound, as well as a larger array of channels. Primestar, for example, offers a package of 14 regional sports networks that provide college football games on Saturday, and DirecTV will soon offer pro fans a full complement of 10 to 12 n.f.l. games on Sunday (cost: $49.95 for five weekends). DSS also offers 50 pay-per-view movie channels, with...
...past month, however, Arietta has plunged fast and deep into the multichannel universe. Primestar, a home-satellite company, picked Arietta as a demonstration site for its 77-channel DBS service. The company offered residents free installation of a 36-in. receiving dish and two months of free service. Ninety of the town's 133 families signed up, and in one weekend Arietta went from snowy images of Murder, She Wrote to a crystal-clear cornucopia of everything from cnn and the Cartoon Network to round-the-clock movies...
...failed in the view of at least a few residents. Donald Courtney, 67, a retired forest ranger, is one local who refused Primestar. "I can fall asleep in front of one channel as well as I can with a dozen," he says. Nevertheless, TV has made its mark on Arietta. Video rentals at Farber's General Store have dropped. Twelve-year-old Dean Hotaling isn't playing as much basketball as he used to. ("I watch about three hours a day now. I used to watch one hour.") And the barrage of TV news has quickly turned local viewers into...