Deseret News television editor Scott D. Pierce is attending the Television Critics Association spring press tour in Pasadena, Calif. His daily column will resume next week.
Jeffrey Washington got really mad at his cable company when a technical glitch turned his television dark just before a holiday weekend."If I'm going into a three-day weekend and I've got children at home that are 8 and 4 and I can't get Nickelodeon, I've got a problem," Washington said. "We would call to find out what was happening and just get a recording."
A few months later, when Bell Atlantic began packaging satellite-based DirecTV with his local telephone service in Mitchellville, Md., Washington signed up.
He pays about the same price -- around $60 a month for basic service with premium channels -- and said he is happier with the service and gets a sharper picture.
Satellite companies have been hobbled by a federal law designed to protect broadcasters that bars them from offering local stations via satellite. That has persuaded many potential customers to stick with cable.
But they have found a low-tech solution by joining forces with local phone companies, a move that the satellite companies hope will snare more customers.
"We provide a local signal solution," said Richard Beville, president of Bell Atlantic Video, the subsidiary that is executing Bell Atlantic's foray into television service. "We're the home team in all these markets we serve."
Cable companies are responding to the new threat by upgrading their systems with technology that will allow sharper pictures, more channels and additional services like telephone and the Internet.
Whether the new strategies will give satellite companies such as DirecTV a bigger chunk of cable's customer base remains to be seen. What is clear is that the approach has infused the industry with new energy and optimism about the future of direct broadcasting.
"We see it as a very big deal in terms of it driving subscribers, building the subscriber base and getting the word-of-mouth out there in terms of what satellite TV can do," said Jimmy Schaeffler, chairman of the Carmel Group, a market analysis company that monitors the direct broadcast industry.
Cable now has 67.4 percent of the nation's TV market, a share that's worth $33.8 billion, according to the National Cable Television Association. Direct broadcasters claim about 10 percent of the market share.
In recent months, Hughes Electronic Corp.'s DirecTV and U.S. Satellite Broadcasting each have entered into marketing agreements with big local telephone providers, including Bell Atlantic, Southwestern Bell and GTE. The deals are expected to give the satellite companies a broader marketing reach.
The phone companies have been offering the service on a limited basis for several months and plan to expand this year.
Those subscribing to the new service get a pizza-size satellite dish on their roof, and they also get a small antenna that pulls in local channels.
By picking the right antenna for local conditions, the phone companies say they can match or exceed the picture quality of cable television.
Recent acquisitions might also make satellite companies more appealing to American viewers.
Last month, DirecTV announced it would buy U.S. Satellite for $1.3 billion in a deal that will allow DirecTV to offer subscribers more than 100 channels, far more than the number available on cable.
Competitor EchoStar Communications, operator of the Dish Network, plans to buy the last U.S. satellite license from MCI Worldcom and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp in a $1.25 billion deal that also includes two satellites under construction. The sale gives Denver-based EchoStar the potential to offer up to 500 channels and Internet access to its customers. EchoStar and the other big player in the industry, Primestar Inc., each have around 2 million subscribers.
To entice customers, companies also are offering sharp discounts on the cost of dish installation.
Cable companies are countering with upgraded service.
"We will win," said Bill Rosendahl, senior vice president of operations at Century Communications of Southern California, a subsidiary of Connecticut-based Century Communications Inc., which provides cable to about 1.3 million households nationwide.
Rosendahl said upgrades that will provide high-definition TV and a greater number of channels, combined with solid customer service, can ensure cable's continued dominance.
"The uniqueness of cable is the pipe to the home," Rosendahl said. "This broadband pipe will do more than a satellite option does. First of all, it will provide a cable modem. Second, it will give two-way capability and interactivity. This opens up a whole new world."
But will the upgrades overcome customer relations problems?
"A lot of consumers really have an animosity toward cable, and a lot of it is an earned animosity," said Schaeffler, of the Carmel group.
"Cable has been an entrenched, arrogant monopoly for 20 to 30 years, and they have done what monopolies usually do, they have raised rates and provided poor service and just in general disregarded the leveling effect of competition, so now it's coming back to bite them."
Satisfaction with direct broadcast systems is high among users. In a survey of satellite subscribers conducted by the Boston-based Yankee Group, 90 percent rated features overall as excellent or good. Eighty-four percent said they would recommend it to a friend, said Bruce Leichtman, the Yankee Group's director of media and entertainment strategies.
In a second survey, consumers who don't get direct broadcast were asked why they hadn't signed up. Forty-one percent of the 2,000 respondents said simply that they saw no need for it.
Executives at satellite companies are hoping those attitudes will change as their new marketing plans swing into full gear.