TRENDS IN TELEVISION

 Video today can be delivered in several ways: VCR and discs, over-the-air television, cable television, telco, direct broadcast satellite (DBS), wireless cable (multichannel multipoint distribution service (MMDS) or local multichannel distribution service (LMDS)), and computers (CD-ROM). Predicting the future media mix is difficult. Some argue that as Moore's Law (the number of transistors on a chip doubles every 18 months) continues to operate, the computer (or telecomputer) will become the dominant means of receiving all information, including video.3 Others believe that DBS, using digital compression techniques, will displace cable and conventional television as the most important medium. Yet another contingent holds that DBS will be a niche service with a focus on rural areas. Only the market can deliver the answer. No policy can be made today on the basis of conjecture about the most successful means of distribution.

As Robert Pepper, chief of the FCC's Office of Plans and Policy has noted, it is clear that television's evolution from its first stage, "a limited capacity terrestrial broadcast medium supported [only] by advertising," to its second stage, "a multichannel medium supported by both direct viewer payments as well as advertising in which more than 60 percent of the nation's households get their television over a wire," continues at a rapid pace.4 With future developments, there will be greater competition for viewers (with continuing fractionation of the audience), for advertising dollars, and for popular programming. Further, the new delivery systems and cable will seek higher revenues from direct subscriber payments.

Pepper has identified television's emerging third and fourth stages:

The third stage in television's transformation is just beginning. It will be high resolution and interactive. Viewers will be able to control their viewing more than ever before by ordering programming when they want it. Direct payment for programming will become easier than ever. . . . the fourth stage is [also] emerging. It will be digital, flexible, and not only multichoice, but will permit customized choice with full interactivity, similar to what is possible today from information service data bases. The future digital world at the end of the century and beyond will permit television viewers to exercise even more control over their viewing by allowing them to order, access, store, and manipulate video, when and where they want it. This future environment also will permit copyright holders--the program producers--to receive much better information about who is watching what, and to be paid for that use.5

Although these stages, particularly the conversion to a digital, customized world, are surely in the offing and should be taken into account, they are at best peripheral to the congressional policy reform urged herein.6 The crucial consideration for the discussion here is that television broadcasting will continue to be an important mass medium for at least the next decade, and perhaps well beyond. In a dynamic field like telecommunications, making policy with a range longer than a decade is difficult. It follows that we should adopt policies for the electronic mass media, especially for broadcasting, that will serve the public interest from 1995 to 2005.