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Scrapping over transponders is especially intense among cable television-programming companies, which see the devices as a way to cut costs and gain on the competition. For them, by far the most popular and sought-after transponders are the 24 aboard RCA's Satcom III-R, launched into orbit last November. They can carry two dozen different channels of cable TV programming. The satellite's customers include the pay TV channels Showtime and Home Box Office as well as Warner Amex and Turner Broadcasting System.
Satcom III-R carries so many big programs that practically every cable operator in the country has a dish to pick up its signals. As a result, says John Tagliaferro, president of Hughes Televison Network, "if you get access to one of those transponders, you have reached 90% of the cable homes in the country." Tagliaferro's company, a subsidiary of Gulf & Western, is not on Satcom III-R, but he wishes it were. The company rents four transponders on several Western Union Westar satellites and sells time on them to customers seeking temporary services, primarily for sporting events.
Originally, Satcom III-R transponders were rented by RCA to entertainment and programming companies for up to $1.5 million a year. But by July of 1981, four months before Satcom III-R was even launched, demand for space on the satellite had grown so hot that Landmark Communications Inc. of Norfolk, Va., which broadcasts round-the-clock weather forecasts, found itself having to pay a cool $10.5 million up front to acquire sublet rights on one of Satcom's transponders. The seller of the lease: Premier network, a failed joint venture of several Hollywood film studios.
The best way to get transponder prices down is to increase the supply of satellites. More are on the way. NASA is coming under competitive pressure for launching services from the eleven-nation European Space Agency's Ariane project, which is booked solid for launches beginning late next year and running through 1985. Meanwhile, a no-frills private-enterprise launching service, Space Services Inc., successfully tested a launch rocket last summer at Matagorda Island, Texas. The prototype rocket, dubbed Conestoga I, was built in part from spare NASA assemblies, including the motor from a solid-fuel Minuteman missile. The firm's owners now plan to go into commercial service in 1984, with monthly launches starting two years later. With space technology rapidly advancing and the competition for launches beginning to perk up, prices may start dropping out of orbit long before the satellites do. —By Christopher Byron. Reported by Jerry Hannifin/Washington and Stephen Koepp/New York