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Show o Soutfi Ceiilnd Utoli Supplement To: Gunnison Valley News - The Salina Sun Garfield County News - The Richfield Reaper VOLUME 3 NUMBER6I WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1982 The Cable, Video Market; Two Other Viewpoints C. Kent Pearce, manager of Intermoutnain Cablevision, receive cable TV signals. Intermountain Cablevision has about 400 homes hooked up to cable TV in Richfield. Richfield, stands next to a Hughes satelite dish used to By Loren R. Webb ming, he says, People dont have to watch rerun after rerun. It also gives Associate Editor who work swing hours, a chance The movies Tess, Fort Apache, people to see a movie, they normally wouldnt The Bronx, Bo- see. Raging Bull, . ( and -- Tribute, have rderline, Since coming to Richfield a year ago, something in common. They have all been shown in theatres across the Pearce says 400 homes have been country and will probably be seen a hooked up. He hopes to have 1,000 by the end of the year. The company is year or two later on TV. presently installing a satellite dish in But when it costs $3.50 per person to Salina. attend a movie, plus gas to get there How is cable hooked to an inand then to buy expensive refreshments, it can become an expensive dividuals home? The company rents venture. As a result, other alternatives existing Utah Power & Light Co. poles people seem to be turning to are cable and where power comes off the pole into the house, is where the cable is TV and the video market. placed Cable TV is a bargain, You can have At present, Pearce has two installers a for entertainment month, good famliy for the cost of taking the family to one and two salesmen. In addition, a movie that month, says C Kent marketing and advertising man comes out of Intermountain periodically company Pearce, manager, Cablevision in Richfield. headquarters in Draper. who worked with electronics while in the Navy, says cable TV brings a variety of programs on normal TV, Pearce, such as a 24 hour sports station, a 24 hour news station and family program stations origninating from Chicago and Atlanta. Another station called covers Congressional hearings. It also carries family programs, sports and news. In addition, a local TV channel carries weather reports and local ads. Home Box Office (HBO) and Cinemax, the movie stations, can also be obtained on cable TV, HBO and Cinemax are optional channels showing uncut, uninterrupted movies. If a person rents both channels, the advantage is either station shows the same movie at the same time. Cinemax concentrates on older movies, concerts, documentatrires, with some new movies, while HBO runs more recently made movies. What does cable cost? A basic monthly subscription for channels 2 to 13, costs $9.95, with an initial $19 95 installation charge. If one wants the basic channels plus HBO, the cost jumps to $19.90, with an initial installation fee of $25.95. Basic, plus Cinemax, costs the same. Both require a $25 equipment deposit, as does basic, plus both HBO and Cinemax. Monthly charges for all those channels, runs $26.90. Extra outlets cost $4.95 each for installation fee, no equipment deposit and only $1.50 a month extra charge. If service is disconnected, to restore it, a service charge of $14.95 is tacked on. Pearce admits its expensive to first hook up, but it can be much cheaper than going to movies. He claims its also cheaper than video discs and disc machines. The cost just to rent is expensive. Cable TV gets movies as soon as tney are released aim you can do the same thing and enjoy it at home, says Pearce. Along with the variety of program Pearce says a company must get a franchise first, then if To get started, the host city allows it, the city gives so much time for installing the cable. The company must also get permission from the power company to lay the lines. Next, contracts with each cable station must be acquired. Money has to also be budgeted for laying cable which costs $10,000 a mile. Currently, Cablevision has laid 40 miles of cable in Richfield. Probably one drawback for the company in a small town, is having to make the money back before installing more cable. Cables advantage over existing TV, is dependable transmission as opposed to translator stations. When the stations break down, cable stays on. With those advantages, Pearce says business has been good and is slowly climbing However, when many people hear cable TV, they think of R rated movies, but those movies only come on HBO and Cinemax, he explained. No R rated movies are shown on the basic 2 to 13 channels. Pearce also will not carry any X rated movies. help the viewer further, Cablevision channels and times of showing are listed in the Spotlight section of The Richfield Reaper. The cable company also provides opportunties for advertising on the local TV channel which has background music provided by the local FM station. To For those who dont like or cant afford cable TV, the video market is another alternative worth looking into. Shaun McCausland, owner of Vector Video in Richfield, agrees with Pearce, more people are not traveling for entertainment. They are staying home and doing things with their families. Video tapes or discs can fit into this routine. McCausland says a husband or wife may work till 9 p.m. and have to be A video flexible with their time. recorder gives them flexibility. They can watch movies anytime. A video recorder makes it possible to tape a TV program, then come back and watch the movie. All thats needed, is one wire to hook the tape recorder to the antenna and turn on the TV. Shaun McCausland, Vector Video owner in Richfield, says vWeo apes and discs are becoming a popular alter and $12 for nonmembers. Piracy usually involves movies At the present time, business is steady. Busy on weekends and slower on weekdays, which is the reason McCausland offers lower weekday prices. Vector Video rents and sells video tapes, video recorders, discs and discplayers, TV computer games and stereos. He claims his company has as many or more movies to offer as cable TV does and you can watch ours anytime you cant with them. A lot of times, cables good movies show at 1 a.m. But there is room for both, he says. Buying a video recorder can be expensive, so the company offers rentals, so more people can see movies. Video recorders range in price from $600 to $1200, he says, while video disc players run from $400 to $1200. there are some cable (HBO) shows which I would not want my children to see. The movie channels have several bad ones. But I think people have the right to see what they want. The basic difference between discs and tapes is the number available, while only 1,000 discs are available, 20.000 movies are on tapes of wbicti X rated leaving 13,000 7.000 are and R consisting of G PG movies. So what are the costs? McClausland offers club memberships at $50 a year. For members, renting a tape on weekends, costs $2 and $4 if a nonmember, plus a $20 deposit. Members also pay $4 for a tapeplayer on a week night and $8 if not a member, plus a $40 deposit. Members pay $2.50 a tape on weekends, nonmembers, $5, and tape players run $6 for members native to the weekend theatre jaunt. Tapes and discs can be used any time. However, McCausland did not support the cable recently defeated in the Utah Legislature which attempted to place controls on what cable could show. But a potential renter has to be 18 years or older to check R rated movie tapes out . There are no legal restrictions on distribution X rated movies in town, but we dont want to carry those anyway. bill A mdre serious problem in the video business is piracy. McCausland knows some people who have pirated tapes, but doesnt believe they are making them in this area. Rather, the tapes are brought in after being purchased elsewhere. available locally through tape outlets such as Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost not Piracy doesnt hurt us. What it hurts is the movie industry. He explained most good films cost between $40 and $120 million alone. The studios then distribute those to movie houses. Most films make their investment cost back, but there are many that dont. For every film that makes it, there are 30 that dont, he says. Studios add to their money by selling movie rights to HBO, regular TV, and in video tapes. If the films are available through the black market, people will not pay money to see them on HBO. TV, and they will not rent or buy tapes from us, says McCausland. Every one of those things they dont do, takes money away from the movie industry people. - Therefore, if it becomes unprofitable to sell good movies, they will quit making them. Thats why I encourage people not to buy pirated tapes, because it will hurt the industry and eventually the customer. Besides his Richfield store, McCausland has a branch in Salina and is looking to open in several other small southern Utah towns. And although there are five stores in Salina and a few in Richfield selling tapes or discs, they are doing it piecemeal, he says. Vector Video rents 250 tapes and 20 discs in Richfield. Roads Show Traffic Hike Most traffic counting stations on Utah highways showed an increase in volume during 1981, according to the monthly report of the Utah Department of Transportation. traffic volumes at 55 permanently located operating traffic stations showed an overall traffic increase of when compared with the corresponding month of the previous year in November, and an for the first 11 increase of months when compared with the previous year. The composite Interstate highways, both in urban and rural areas, showed traffic increases for the first 11 months of 1981 and for the month of November, 1981, when compared with the previous year. For November, rural interstate travel was up by and urban travel was up by over the previous November. For the year to date, rural interstate traffic was up by and urban travel was up by nt nt 3 (Continued on Page 7) Boy Scouts of America and Utah Celebrating Birthday This Week On Feb. 8, The Boy Scouts of America was 72 years old. National Scouting Week has been celebrating that fact from Feb. 7 and will continue until Feb. 14. A year after national scouting was organized in New York State, scouting in Utah was organized in Salt Lake City. The first South Central Utah scout troop was organized in Sevier County in 1913. That council later expanded to include Sanpete, Sevier, Piute, Wayne and Garfield Counties, according to the book, Our Own Sevier. of scouting in this in a nutshell, here it is in detail: Thats the history area In March of 1913, four Richfield youngsters approached Roy Chidester and asked him if he would be their scoutmaster. After reading the Scout Handbook, he consented and Troop I was organized with Salisbury Andelin, Chese Skougaard, Leland Chidester, and Gordin Goodin. Roy served as scoutmaster for 21 years after that time. From Scout Troops, were for boys from ages the valley. In organized throughout 1917, Venice and Sigurd started Scouting. By 1920, Annabella had 22 fully uniformed boys. 12-1- In 1914, Central ward created a troop with Willard Stevenson as scoutmaster and in that same year two Aurora men, J. E. Day and Edwin Sorensen attended a scout training course at Snow College in Ephraim. Day is the father of the present Council Chief Scout Executive, Fred Dayl. Kendrick Harward, Richfield Mayor and stake patriarch, was in the first registered troop in Aurora in 1925. Troop I of Richfield numbered 60 boys and was divided, and by 1954 six Richfield Wards had troops. In 1958, the Community Church sponsored a troop for their boys and the Indians living at the dormitory. Also during 1917 1918, troops began in Monroe and Salina and Glenwood wards. By was organized to include Sanpete, Sevier, Piute, Wayne and Garfield Counties. In 1936, this council joined the Timpanogas and Zions Park Councils to become the Utah National Parks Council, now one of the largest in the nation. Council 1913 to 1925 Boy 1920, -- In the early 1920s, the Bryce Canyon The council was divided into districts and Sevier County had North Sevier, Fishlake, and Sigurd Peak which continued until 1961 when all three nyere merged into present Fishlake District. Many leaders have served through the years as scoutmasters, district leaders, and executives with literally tens of thousand volunteered hours of time. At present, Dr. D. O. Larson and William Pratt serve as council vice presidents with Raymond Hendrickson serving on the executive committee. Camping has always been one of the parts of scouting and those early troops all went on a week to two week long "annual every summer. Popular main camps were Fishlake, Johnson Reservoir, Kimberly, Fish Creek, Maple Grove, and Gooseberry. The would be made with teams of horses, trek carts, or backpacks. trips as 0 boys would be by one leader and make their own tables, chairs and all the comforts of home. They did their own cooking, including making bread and bottling wild berries to take home. As many 50-6- Today, boys are driven to camp in cars and most would never be able to pack all their gear on their backs. The same ideals of Scouting apply however, and citizenship, character building, adventure, physical fitness and advancement are all a part of the camping experience. In 1928, the LDS church organized the Vangaurd program for older boys and in 1932, the Boy Scouts of America adopted it as the Explorer program. In 1953, a Cub Scout Pack was organized in Richfield and in 1978 the first of our Varisty Scout Teams were sponsored. At present, there are 1,348 boys registered in 109 units in the Fishlake District. |