Current.org | WaveTop rides PBS signal

CURRENT ONLINE

PBS carries signal for a contender in the "push" sweepstakes
Originally published in Current, March 3, 1997

By Steve Behrens

Sometime this spring, public TV transmitters across the country will begin emitting a new stream of data aimed at home computers, not TV sets.

The WaveTop service, like many others angling for success, is a cousin of the "push" technologies you may have read about in Wired or Business Week cover stories.

Entrepreneurs have cooked up a rich variety of schemes to make computers a receiving device for "channels" of information and advertising modeled after commercial TV.

A few, like WaveTop, plan to get into the home PC through a broadcast tuner, but most of these services use the Internet to "push" web-page-like products to subscribers rather than waiting (perhaps forever) for consumers to find them on the web and "pull" them onto the screen.

For public broadcasters, the welter of technologies offer not only intriguing new ways to deliver information, but also some welcome revenue. WaveTop, for instance, is renting part of public TV's vertical blanking interval to get its data out to the public.

You could see some of the possibilities on the screen of Jay Trager's Compaq, in his office at PBS headquarters last week.

Trager gets to have these cool doodads on his computer because he's No. 2 at PBS National Datacast, the for-profit subsidiary that rents out surplus VBI capacity for public TV stations.

In the top left corner of Trager's screen, there's CNN's coverage of Alan Greenspan briefing the Senate, and just below Greenspan are data on selected stocks that Trager is monitoring.

If the stock prices were real-time rather than delayed by 15 minutes, we might be watching them fall in reaction to what Greenspan was saying that moment at the top of the screen!

WaveTop subscribers will be able to select songs (using the dialog box above) or news reports or other material that has been broadcast to their computers over leased "space" in the public TV signal. Above: a portion of a WaveTop screen, courtesy of WavePhore Inc.

Outside link: Explanation of WaveTop service on its web site. (Click on the spinning logo to get in.)

Outside link: Discussion group on Wired web site about cover story about "push." (After March 20, story will be posted, too.)

This example of media convergence was not happening on WaveTop--which is not operating yet--but on CNN's version of Intel Intercast technology, which uses the same receiving hardware.
The trick for WaveTop, Intercast, PointCast, NewsCatcher, BackWeb and a horde of other schemes is to get their software and/or hardware into as many home computers as possible and then persuade John Q. Compaq to turn them on a second time.

PBS has bet on WaveTop.

Most public TV stations--170 licensees with 258 stations, covering nearly all the country--have agreed to let PBS National Datacast lease out six of the 10 VBI lines on which the FCC allows commercial traffic. Four of those six lines already are ready for use at stations.
Outside link: Information about Intercast technology on web site of Intercast Industry Group.

Outside link: Web site of PointCast ("Your desktop newscast") the leading "push" broadcaster using the Internet, with links for downloading free PointCast Network software.

Outside link: Web site of AirMediaLive Internet Broadcast Network, which uses paging frequencies to send a datastream to pyramid-shaped Global Village NewsCatcher receivers attached to personal computers.

One of those lines is rented by StarSight Telecast Inc., a Fremont, Calif., company that sends out a paid-subscription electronic program guide to subscribers with special TV sets.
Last fall, PBS National Datacast leased two more VBI lines and gave options on "a number of others" to WavePhore, the Phoenix company that is developing WaveTop, according to Jackie Weiss, president of Datacast.

The deal is: VBI tenants like StarSight and WavePhore pay a base fee to the PBS subsidiary, and that fee rises as they reach predetermined levels of subscribers or revenues, Weiss says. PBS also can put some public TV information on the service--probably related to children's programming.

Stations receive half the net income and PBS, 10 percent, says Trager; PBS National Datacast plows the rest into its business. Since fiscal 1993, the subsidiary has returned $2 million to the stations and PBS, he says.

What WavePhore gets is a way to send data to consumers' home computers, all across the country, "without the bottleneck of the Internet or tying up their phone lines," as the initial WaveTop ads said last month.

"WaveTop has only a limited number of opportunities available for its launch," said the ads. Translation: the company is looking for a dozen big-name content providers that will sell their own advertising and give the company a share, says Sandy Goldman, v.p. of WavePhore's consumer products group.

Consumers who subscribe and have Intercast hardware in their computers (an add-in card costs $100) will get the service free: news reports, stuff for kids, software updates, hit music on-demand. The company aims to start with four VBI lines, giving it a capacity of 56 kb per second, twice the speed of most home Internet connections. Within a day, the service can deliver as much as 200-300 mb of text, graphics and multimedia on a user's hard drive, up to an amount set by the user.

Weiss says WavePhore has the assets it needs to succeed. The company has a good concept, resources, and relationships with both content providers (who provide data for its ongoing services to businesses) and with Intel (a part-owner), she says.

"And if you asked my kid, who's 14 and a computer whiz, he'd say, 'Definitely! Can I have it tomorrow?'"
Outside link: Explanation of StarSight service on web site of StarSight Telecast Inc.

In the new-tech market, however, even the coolest ideas can quickly fall by the wayside. In the early '90s, NBC and other media giants invested in the Interactive Network, and PBS provided VBI capacity for its data stream, but it has vanished with few traces. Earlier news from Current: Earlier schemes to combine TV and computers--Interactive Network and TV Answer--used proprietary consumer hardware, not personal computers, to do the receiving.

Services based on Intel Intercast hardware, like WaveTop, are direct descendants of the teletext schemes that briefly raised hopes for datacasting in the early 1980s, as Wisconsin technology consultant Steven Vedro has pointed out. In a recent info.p@cket report for CPB, Vedro recalled working on a project at WHA-TV in Madison that tried to put farm news on teletext. Outside link: Detailed article about Intercast and related technologies by Steven Vedro on CPB web site.

Far more successful are simple versions of "push" technology such as Internet "mailing lists" that send periodic e-mails to computer users. PBS Online, for instance, sends out weekly "PBS Previews" promos for the PBS schedule as well as its own offerings, via weekly e-mails. With little publicity, the free service has picked up 45,000 subscribers in 17 months, says PBS Online chief Cynthia Johanson. PBS may add color and graphics to the e-mail with new Netscape technology this spring--essentially converting the e-mail promos into web pages that go out to their readers. PBS Online also allows web visitors to select specific web material to be sent to them via Intermind Communicator software. Outside link: Explanation of PBS Previews online newsletter on PBS Online web site.

Outside link: PBS Online's explanation of Intermind Communicator service, with link for downloading Intermind software.

In Boston, meanwhile, WGBH is datacasting experimentally with Intel Intercast technology as well as BackWeb, a "push" technology that uses the Internet.
"When WGBH looks at this, we're looking at, 'What's digital television going to be like?'" says Howard Cutler, the station's director of interactive projects. "It's a great test bed to start thinking about the combination of broadcast and datacast as a creative medium."
Outside link: WGBH web site offers BackWeb subscriptions in conjunction with Arthur, American Experience and Nova.

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Copyright 1997

PBS carries signal for a contender in the "push" sweepstakes Originally published in Current, March 3, 1997 By Steve Behrens Sometime this spring, public TV transmitters across the country will begin emitting a new stream of data aimed at home computers, not TV sets. The WaveTop service, like many others angling for success, is a cousin of the "push" technologies you may have read about in Wired or Business Week cover stories. Entrepreneurs have cooked up a rich variety of schemes to make computers a receiving device for "channels" of information and advertising modeled after commercial TV. A few, like WaveTop, plan to get into the home PC through a broadcast tuner, but most of these services use the Internet to "push" web-page-like products to subscribers rather than waiting (perhaps forever) for consumers to find them on the web and "pull" them onto the screen. For public broadcasters, the welter of technologies offer not only intriguing new ways to deliver information, but also some welcome revenue. WaveTop, for instance, is renting part of public TV's vertical blanking interval to get its data out to the public. You could see some of the possibilities on the screen of Jay Trager's Compaq, in his office at PBS headquarters last week. Trager gets to have these cool doodads on his computer because he's No. 2 at PBS National Datacast, the for-profit subsidiary that rents out surplus VBI capacity for public TV stations. In the top left corner of Trager's screen, there's CNN's coverage of Alan Greenspan briefing the Senate, and just below Greenspan are data on selected stocks that Trager is monitoring. If the stock prices were real-time rather than delayed by 15 minutes, we might be watching them fall in reaction to what Greenspan was saying that moment at the top of the screen!	WaveTop subscribers will be able to select songs (using the dialog box above) or news reports or other material that has been broadcast to their computers over leased "space" in the public TV signal. Above: a portion of a WaveTop screen, courtesy of WavePhore Inc. Outside link: Explanation of WaveTop service on its web site. (Click on the spinning logo to get in.) Outside link: Discussion group on Wired web site about cover story about "push." (After March 20, story will be posted, too.)
This example of media convergence was not happening on WaveTop--which is not operating yet--but on CNN's version of Intel Intercast technology, which uses the same receiving hardware. The trick for WaveTop, Intercast, PointCast, NewsCatcher, BackWeb and a horde of other schemes is to get their software and/or hardware into as many home computers as possible and then persuade John Q. Compaq to turn them on a second time. PBS has bet on WaveTop. Most public TV stations--170 licensees with 258 stations, covering nearly all the country--have agreed to let PBS National Datacast lease out six of the 10 VBI lines on which the FCC allows commercial traffic. Four of those six lines already are ready for use at stations.	Outside link: Information about Intercast technology on web site of Intercast Industry Group. Outside link: Web site of PointCast ("Your desktop newscast") the leading "push" broadcaster using the Internet, with links for downloading free PointCast Network software. Outside link: Web site of AirMediaLive Internet Broadcast Network, which uses paging frequencies to send a datastream to pyramid-shaped Global Village NewsCatcher receivers attached to personal computers.
One of those lines is rented by StarSight Telecast Inc., a Fremont, Calif., company that sends out a paid-subscription electronic program guide to subscribers with special TV sets. Last fall, PBS National Datacast leased two more VBI lines and gave options on "a number of others" to WavePhore, the Phoenix company that is developing WaveTop, according to Jackie Weiss, president of Datacast. The deal is: VBI tenants like StarSight and WavePhore pay a base fee to the PBS subsidiary, and that fee rises as they reach predetermined levels of subscribers or revenues, Weiss says. PBS also can put some public TV information on the service--probably related to children's programming. Stations receive half the net income and PBS, 10 percent, says Trager; PBS National Datacast plows the rest into its business. Since fiscal 1993, the subsidiary has returned $2 million to the stations and PBS, he says. What WavePhore gets is a way to send data to consumers' home computers, all across the country, "without the bottleneck of the Internet or tying up their phone lines," as the initial WaveTop ads said last month. "WaveTop has only a limited number of opportunities available for its launch," said the ads. Translation: the company is looking for a dozen big-name content providers that will sell their own advertising and give the company a share, says Sandy Goldman, v.p. of WavePhore's consumer products group. Consumers who subscribe and have Intercast hardware in their computers (an add-in card costs $100) will get the service free: news reports, stuff for kids, software updates, hit music on-demand. The company aims to start with four VBI lines, giving it a capacity of 56 kb per second, twice the speed of most home Internet connections. Within a day, the service can deliver as much as 200-300 mb of text, graphics and multimedia on a user's hard drive, up to an amount set by the user. Weiss says WavePhore has the assets it needs to succeed. The company has a good concept, resources, and relationships with both content providers (who provide data for its ongoing services to businesses) and with Intel (a part-owner), she says. "And if you asked my kid, who's 14 and a computer whiz, he'd say, 'Definitely! Can I have it tomorrow?'"	Outside link: Explanation of StarSight service on web site of StarSight Telecast Inc.
In the new-tech market, however, even the coolest ideas can quickly fall by the wayside. In the early '90s, NBC and other media giants invested in the Interactive Network, and PBS provided VBI capacity for its data stream, but it has vanished with few traces.	Earlier news from Current: Earlier schemes to combine TV and computers--Interactive Network and TV Answer--used proprietary consumer hardware, not personal computers, to do the receiving.
Services based on Intel Intercast hardware, like WaveTop, are direct descendants of the teletext schemes that briefly raised hopes for datacasting in the early 1980s, as Wisconsin technology consultant Steven Vedro has pointed out. In a recent info.p@cket report for CPB, Vedro recalled working on a project at WHA-TV in Madison that tried to put farm news on teletext.	Outside link: Detailed article about Intercast and related technologies by Steven Vedro on CPB web site.
Far more successful are simple versions of "push" technology such as Internet "mailing lists" that send periodic e-mails to computer users. PBS Online, for instance, sends out weekly "PBS Previews" promos for the PBS schedule as well as its own offerings, via weekly e-mails. With little publicity, the free service has picked up 45,000 subscribers in 17 months, says PBS Online chief Cynthia Johanson. PBS may add color and graphics to the e-mail with new Netscape technology this spring--essentially converting the e-mail promos into web pages that go out to their readers. PBS Online also allows web visitors to select specific web material to be sent to them via Intermind Communicator software.	Outside link: Explanation of PBS Previews online newsletter on PBS Online web site. Outside link: PBS Online's explanation of Intermind Communicator service, with link for downloading Intermind software.
In Boston, meanwhile, WGBH is datacasting experimentally with Intel Intercast technology as well as BackWeb, a "push" technology that uses the Internet. "When WGBH looks at this, we're looking at, 'What's digital television going to be like?'" says Howard Cutler, the station's director of interactive projects. "It's a great test bed to start thinking about the combination of broadcast and datacast as a creative medium."	Outside link: WGBH web site offers BackWeb subscriptions in conjunction with Arthur, American Experience and Nova.