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No advertising is seen on pay cable, so all shows run without interruption. Consequently they are not tailored to arbitrary time slots; if a movie runs 2 hr. 16 min., so be it. Also, the shows are presented unedited: an R-rated movie contains the scenes that regular TV censors out, if it ever gets to the networks. Watchers of a 2½-hr. Bette Midler special over Home Box Office channels as long ago as June 1976, for example, heard the raunchy language that convulses her nightclub fans but that was greatly toned down in a network TV special aired over NBC in early 1978. Much of the excitement and the growth are in pay cable, which has rocketed from 978,000 subscribers at the end of 1976 to 3.8 million today.
In some areas, viewers have a third choice: subscription TV. A subscription operator subleases a UHF channel and sends signals through the air that are picked up by a rooftop antenna and unscrambled by a decoder box. The viewer pays a $25 installation charge and then puts up between $16 and $18 a month for a package of movies and ball games.
Subscription TV of course, is not cable at all, since it sends signals through the air. For the viewer, the main difference between this and pay cable is that subscription offerings are far more limited, since the service is only beginning in a few areas. Paul Kagan, publisher of several newsletters on non-network TV, believes that subscription TV could become important, largely because new companies can get into it quickly; they do not have to buy a franchise or string cable.
How fast cable continues to grow will depend heavily on how fast and well programming is broadened. Though the range of programs that can be seen at some time or other is wide, most viewing hours are now filled by movies, and not always recent or absorbing ones; such forgettable flicks as The Choirboys and Ace High abound. Production of more original shows was long held back because cable companies lacked the money to bid for talent. Even now they cannot move ahead full speed because there is a dispute over the take. The Directors' Guild is negotiating with Home Box Office, seeking a portion of HBO's revenues for original shows on pay cable.
When that problem is resolved, cable programmers will have a big advantage: they will be able to offer an audience to producers, writers and directors who find network TV's incessant search for the broadest common denominator of popular taste dulling to creativity. Says Teleprompter's Karp: "I look for the time when suppliers will come to us and say, 'We have this new idea and we think it will attract 4 million homes. We can't sell it to ABC because they need 20 million homes, but it is perfect for you people.' "
Monroe Rifkin, chairman and president of American Television and Communications Corp. (A.T.C.), a subsidiary of Time Inc. and the second biggest cable operator after Teleprompter, believes that the future of cable TV lies in multi-tiered programming—"everything from artsy-craftsy services for the highbrows to macho-violent shows for the lowbrows."