THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 17, 1994 TAG: 9407150060
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LARRY BONKO
LENGTH: Long : 131 lines
PICTURE THIS: It's 4 p.m. on Wall Street. Time for the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange. You're in Norfolk, anxious to know how the 100 shares of Amalgamated Copper and Brass you bought last week fared in the day's trading.
Did the price of your stock rise or fall?
You cut on the TV, flip to CBNC to catch the market summary - stock quotations in blue and white moving across the bottom of the screen as quickly as the Russian army on the march.
So many stocks. So many stock symbols. ONZ. BKB. RYK. AZO. TMX. You have to wait and wait for the Amalgamated Copper and Brass quote to show up.
Wouldn't it be great if you could push a button on your hand-held remote control, and call up the single stock quotation you want to see?
You can if you live in cities in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and California where the cable systems offer an interactive channel called Main Street.
Main Street, say the people at GTE Corp. who designed it, puts you in charge of what you see on television when you want to see it. That includes stock quotations.
All you have to do is touch a button. Programming tailored to your request.
Do your kids need help with their homework? How about if they could tap into Grolier's Academic American Encyclopedia, which is updated every three months? To do so on the Main Street channel, you call up the ``Education'' category. Punch in ``Reference Library.'' Or ``College & Career'' if you want help studying for the SATs, and what student doesn't?
To keep track of the ups and downs of your Amalgamated Copper and Brass stock, punch in the ``Money Manager'' category, then summon up ``Wall Street Plus.'' Type in your stock symbol. Push ``Enter.''
Presto! There's the up-to-the-minute price of your stock on the TV screen.
``Your living room is like a seat on the stock exchange,'' says GTE.
Main Street's parade of choice also includes ``Marketplace,'' ``Community Info,'' ``Family Game Time,'' ``Travel,'' ``Daily Gazette'' and ``Kid Stuff.''
Ever visited a travel agent's office and been intrigued by all the information the agent has available just by pressing a computer key? Main Street ties in cable subscribers in Massachussetts, New Hampshire and California with all the dope on airline, hotel and auto reservations stored in the American Airlines' system as well as in the Mobil Travel Guide.
``Be your own travel agent just by touching a button,'' says GTE.
Interactive television.
It's here.
Get used to sound of it. ``Interactive television'' is a phrase that you couch potatoes will be using as often as you use ``remote control'' today and used ``rabbit ears'' yesterday.
For $9.95, subscribers to Main Street buy into more than 70 services delivered by sharp, crisp pictures. Joni Odom, president of Daniels Cablevision in San Diego County, said Main Street is like no other channel offered to subscribers in the past. How so?
``It becomes part of their lifestyle. It pays their bills, does their homework and plans their vacations. Main Street gets the consumers to think about their television sets in a whole new way.''
With Main Street, who needs a personal computer?
The Interactive Channel, now seen on cable systems in Colorado, Michigan and Texas, is the channel that is giving some newspaper publishers sleepless nights. In addition to offering electronic shopping - see an entire line of Hallmark greeting cards on your TV screen - the Interactive Channel has classifieds with sound and pictures, plus local news, weather and sports.
It's the local newspaper without the newsprint.
And get this, parents: On the Interactive Channel, your kids' teachers will go over tonight's homework assignments with you, if you like.
S-c-a-r-y. Right, kids?
Main Street, the Interactive Channel and Your Choice TV were among the interactive properties that had delegates buzzing recently at the national cable show and exposition in New Orleans. Who wouldn't be impressed by a service (Choice TV) that gives you, for a nominal fee, a second and third chance to see network shows you missed in the past seven days?
Choice TV is being tested in Florida, New York and Ohio.
Didn't catch ``Seinfeld'' last week? Forgot to tape it? No problem. Your Choice TV has the show and is waiting for your call.
That channel is the baby of the people who created the Discovery Channel and The Learning Channel. John S. Hendricks, who founded those channels, was quoted in New Orleans saying that 1994 is the year before the start of the second great period of growth in cable television.
Interactive TV will fuel that growth, he said.
And cable already has the technology, including the set-top box gizmos, to deliver interactive TV into millions of American homes. It's coming by way of cable, and it's coming by way of the telephone lines.
At the cable show in New Orleans, I got a peek at a whole new generation of set-top converters being built for the interactive era. Long, sleek set-top boxes. I also saw interactive TV still in the experimental stage.
At the Weather Channel, they were zeroing in on the weather not just for specific cities, but for specific neighborhoods in those cities. What's the weather in Virginia? In Phoebus? Punch a button, and the Interactive Weather Channel will show you the sun in Phoebus.
(No plans in the immediate future for Main Street or the other new Interactive Channels to be included on cable systems operating in Hampton Roads).
Interactive TV has been around awhile, if you consider using a remote control as engaging in interactive TV. Interactive TV jumped a notch when the home-shopping channels came along. Now you can interact with your TV by using the phone to order hoop earrings or whatever.
This is primitive interactive TV, early-generation stuff, the just-the-start-of-something-big stage.
You ain't seen nothin' yet.
The day is near when you'll be able to see on TV any motion picture you can think of without driving to the video store. The films will all be there in some interactive channel's inventory, waiting for you to press a button.
Use your thumb if you like.
Time Warner Cable expects to introduce such a service at year's end in Orlando, Fla.
And picture this: While watching ``Gone With the Wind,'' you stop to wonder if the script is being faithful to Margaret Mitchell's novel. Want to check it? No problem. Punch one button, and the film stops. Punch another, and the page you were looking for in the novel pops up on the screen.
That is the future of cable television.
When Broadcasting and Cable Magazine polled cable subscribers about how eager they were to sign up for interactive TV channels, 54 percent of them said they were very interested. And many only have a vague idea what interactive TV will deliver.
How many more would be willing to sign up if they could connect with the Main Street channel? And be given the opportunity to play a game called QB1, where viewers get the chance to second-guess the quarterback as an NFL game is in progress? Or be able to watch TV and pay bills at the same time by using electronic transfer? Or hear a sample of what's on the newest CDs?
Seems like only yesterday when watching TV in America meant staring at a black and white test pattern. Today, cable TV is on the verge of running your life for you. by CNB