Word: skiatron
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Nevertheless, the race centers on three major companies: Manhattan's Skiatron Electronics and Television Corp., Los Angeles' International Telemeter Corp. (88% owned by Paramount Pictures), Chicago's Zenith Radio Corp.. which pioneered toll TV in 1947. All three transmit scrambled TV pictures, and the viewer decodes them by dropping coins into a box affixed to the set or by slipping a billing card into a slot...
...many local stations will start out with the toll systems that go out on wires via telephone poles, and thus presumably elude control by FCC, which holds jurisdiction only over the airwaves. Pay TVmen are enthusiastic about the success of a cable test in Bartlesville, Okla. (TIME, Sept. 16). Skiatron has 60 legmen mapping every house in Los Angeles for wiring, and Telemeter expects to start wire TV in Los Angeles "in the very near future." If the wired systems pack in the viewers, pay TV may grow up in a hurry...
...poll conducted by the Federal Communications Commission is running heavily in favor of the idea, sponsored by three companies (Zenith, Skiatron, International Telemeter Corp.). In the three months since FCC invited "public advice" on whether it should permit toll TV, it has received nearly 10,000 letters, telegrams and postcards from viewers, with all but 1,500 approving the plan...
...principle: broadcasting shows which appear as bewildering blurs on the screen unless the subscriber pays to have the image unscrambled. The three main methods: 1) Zenith's Phonevision, . .which pipes the unscrambling signal over telephone lines, with the charges going on monthly telephone bills (TIME, June 4); 2) Skiatron, which equips TV receivers with built-in "decoders" that are operated by special plastic cards; 3) Telemeter, which attaches a coin-in-the-slot gadget directly...