| | Return to Contents page Sugar pours scorn on industry 'plonkers' As reported in "Satellite Trader" April 1994
Introducing what he described as a new, consumer-friendly and independent-dealer friendly era for Amstrad, its chairman Alan Sugar managed at the same time to run down a fair chunk of the industry - from mixed-up moguls to "soldering-lron plonkers".
The launch of Amstrad's range of Astra lD-ready IRDs provided an ideal occasion for Sugar to reflect on the past, present and future of satellite TV. His thesis was simple: satellite will grow by offering consumers maximum choice with minimum hassle.
"We explained this clearly from the start", he said. "We had to drum it in to Sky and Astra that if you sell hardware to people so they can receive your services, they wouldn't think much of you if you then tell them they have to buy more to get new services. It took a while to sink in."
But the principle had been followed, he said, with Astra's co-located satellites meaning the same dish, LNB and receiver could be used: until now, with the advent of 1D using frequencies outside the range of most of the 2-3 million receivers already installed.
Assuming Sky or other English programmers take space on 1D - and Sugar had good reason to assume Sky would - lots of existing viewers are going to need new hardware. "Sky has some big goals," he said. "Sky wants its viewers to be able to receive Astra 1D as soon as possible after the launch."
Already a smart box, frequency extenders and wider-band LNBs are available to upgrade old receivers. But Amstrad reckons to have come up with the kit that will solve the problem with, as Sugar put it, minimum "consumer buggeration".
This would mean that dish-owners could upgrade to 1D without having to touch their dish or LNB - good news for them, not such good news for installers. Installers - the necessary third party in the business - had always been a source of problems, he added. But the guys who attempted to wire in smart boxes were even less welcome, he added: these were the "soldering-iron plonkers".
Sugar was equally uncomplimentary about the prophets of digital revolution. "Digital will mean an expensive extra box - we've calculated it will need at least $480 worth of RAM", he said. "This means a big subsidy job down the line somewhere."
The trouble with the industry, he said, was that the media moguls like Mr Murdoch were being persuaded by their "semi-technical advisors" that digital compression was the thing and that they must go out and do it. Then the "middle management plonkers" get to work, discover the true costs, and run back to the mogul with pleas of "why can't we open a D-RAM factory?".
They too easily ignored the lesson, he added, that customers "are not prepared to sponsor a provider for the privilege of being able to pay them £2 a night to watch their movies."
By contrast, Sugar had every faith that pay-per-view will happen - the profits were too tempting: "You get these 10 million mugs watching. You ask them do you want to watch the Tyson fight for £2? Ten million pay £2 - that's £20 million, while you're paying Tyson £1 million to get his head beaten in."
But Amstrad's new IRDs were the only ones that allow you to program PPV authorisation for the VCR, he added, while the dual-card readers of the SRD550 would be useful if Sky uses separate 'burn down' PPV cards.
Despite Sugar's flippant tone, there was no doubt Amstrad is again taking satellite very seriously, having seen its once totally dominant position eroded by competitors. Apart from rebuilding its relationship with the retail and distribution trade in the UK and across Europe, Amstrad is also eagerly following Rupert Murdoch's excursions into Asia. For the future, Sugar also hinted he might be interested in getting closer to the providers of services: one prospect that really seemed to excite him was the notion of an instantly updated share price DTH data service.
As reported in "Satellite Trader" April 1994 Send this page address - CLICK HERE - to a friend ! | |
