CT> KS> Can anyone explain to me the rationale of a commercial-supported
CT> KS> station going to scrambling?
CT>  well the comerical's do not pay for the whole bill,so they have to
CT>charge for acess...
> I don't dispute what you are saying, but broadcast stations manage
> quite nicely, and they have to buy, operate and maintain a *lot* more
> hardware - huge towers, 500 KW transmitters, etc.  And large staffs of
> on-and-off air personnel. It sounds fishy to me...
Karl,
I did not see your original message due to some FIDO glitch, but
saw the above reply.
It sounds fishy to me too.  Here is my version of the history of
scrambling.  You can take it or leave it :)
HBO was the first cable channel.  Naturally they charged cable companies
a fee based on the number of subscribers receiving HBO.  They had to
charge since they had no commercials.
Other cable channels came along which wanted to have it both ways --
charge per subscriber and run commercials.  Cable companies were already
used to paying a programmer a fee based on number of subscribers, so
they went along with it.
HBO paid General Instruments to develop and install scrambling equipment
at the HBO uplink and cable company headends.  GI, and some of the big
cable companies pressured other programmers to scramble as well.  Some
of them resisted, but the big cable companies threatened to drop them if
they did not scramble.  Disney, Bravo, and the Family Channel were some
of the last of the big guys to scramble.  For many years the Family
Channel would go unscrambled during the "700 Club" so that satellite
viewers could see the show.  It was not fixed key mode either -- people
with no descrambler could view the Family Channel during the hour that
the "700 Club" was on.
Evidently the pressure is still on to scramble.  Now that there are more
channels than the cable companies can put on, some of the new channels
are paying cable companies to carry them instead of asking for payment.
This only makes sense because without viewers the commercials are
worthless.  You would think that those programers would be willing to
let big dish owners view their channels too, but no, they are
scrambling.  What sense does that make?
--- PCBoard (R) v15.3/M 2
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