sexy susann |
Development and launch In 1965, Charles Dolan—who had already done pioneering work in the commercial use of cables and had developed Teleguide, a closed-circuit tourist information television system distributed to hotels in the New York metropolitan area—was awarded the franchise rights to build a cable television system in the Lower Manhattan section of New York City.[19] The new system, which Dolan named "Sterling Information Services" (later to be known as Sterling Manhattan Cable, before eventually becoming Time Warner Cable, which merged into Charter Communications in May 2016), became the first urban underground cable television system in the United States.[20][21] Rather than stringing cable on telephone poles or using microwave antennas to receive the signals, Sterling laid cable beneath the streets in compliance with a longstanding New York City Council ordinance—originally implemented to prevent broad-scale telephone and telegraph outages, after a severe blizzard affecting the Northeastern United States in March 1888 had caused widespread damage to above-ground utility lines in the area—required that all electrical and telecommunication wiring be laid underground to limit service disruptions during bad weather, and because reception of television signals was impaired by the multitude of tall buildings on Manhattan Island.[22] Despite having the financial backing of Time-Life, Inc. (then the book publishing unit of Time Inc.), which was just entering into cable system ownership as Dolan's company launched, Sterling Manhattan consistently lost money throughout its first six years of operation through a combination of the expenses it incurred with running cable wiring underground and into buildings throughout Manhattan (costing as much as $300,000 per mile), and the company's difficulties in expanding its limited subscriber base (by 1967, subscribership for the Sterling system totaled around 400 customers). As a stipulation for allowing it to continue lending money for the venture, in 1969, Dolan agreed In the summer of 1971, while on a family vacation en route to France aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2, Dolan began conceiving ideas to help make Sterling Manhattan profitable. He came up with a proposal for a cable-originated television channel, which he called "The Green Channel", a subscription service that would offer unedited theatrical movies licensed from the major Hollywood film studios and live sporting events, all presented without interruptions by advertising. Under the proposal, the service's start-up costs would be offset by having Sterling enter into carriage agreements with other cable television providers, and draw revenue from fees charged to cable subscribers who added the channel onto their existing service (which then consisted exclusively of local and imported broadcast stations). Dolan later presented his idea to management at Time-Life, who, despite the potential benefit it might have for the company's existing cable television assets, were initially hesitant to consider the idea. In the early 1970s, the cable television industry was not very profitable, and was under constant scrutiny from FCC regulators and the major broadcast television networks (CBS, NBC and ABC), who saw cable as a threat to their viability. Undeterred, Dolan managed to persuade Time-Life to assist him in backing the project. On November 2, 1971, Time Inc.'s board of directors approved the "Green Channel" proposal, agreeing to give Dolan a $150,000 development grant for the project.[22][23] To gauge potential consumer interest in a subscription television service, Time-Life sent out a direct-mail research brochure to residents in six U.S. cities. An overwhelming majority of those surveyed (approximately 99%) opposed the idea of paying for an additional channel, with only 1.2% favoring the concept and expressing interest in being a paid subscriber. In a second survey conducted by an independent consultant, 4% of respondents polled said they were "almost certain" to subscribe to such a service. Time-Life later conducted a test in Allentown, Pennsylvania; in that survery, salesmen presented the pay cable channel concept to residents by offering
|
www.shanagrant.com
Shauna Grant The Last Porn Queen |
|
|
|
|
|