Direct Signal Satellite, enjoying a stellar rookie year as an alternative to cable television, has emerged as one of the hottest new products in consumer electronics, Baltimore-area retailers say.
They report sales of the 18-inch DSS dishes have remained strong despite shortages, a hefty price tag and a bashing from cable TV operators.
All around the country, the cable industry has been running ads pointing out the DSS dishes' hefty price tag, $200 installation charge, monthly programming charges, signal problems during rainstorms and lack of local broadcast channels. And all around the country, technology buffs, video enthusiasts and hard-core cable-haters are ignoring the warnings and plunking down a minimum of $699 to buy into a technology that offers liberation from their local cable monopoly or access to cable programming where none exists.
Walt Frazier, president of Stansbury/Decker Systems Specialists in Linthicum, said DSS equipment has been accounting for 22 to 23 percent of his satellite TV dealership's sales this month. He figures that's pretty good considering that DSS accounted for 0 percent before October, when it arrived on the Maryland market.
"A lot of people are coming in and asking for a pre-Christmas installation date," Mr. Frazier said last week. Others are having it wrapped to put under the Christmas tree and have set up installment appointments for the week after the holiday, he said.
Paul Rakov, a spokesman for Circuit City Stores in Richmond, said DSS sales have been brisk at the giant consumer electronics chain. "It's a popular family present," he said, adding that earlier shortages of the product have largely been alleviated.
One industry's full stocking is another's lump of coal. Mr. Frazier estimated that 90 percent of his DSS sales have gone to customers in areas that receive cable.
'Cable Killer?'
"There's no doubt about it -- people are switching from cable to the DSS," said Clarence Harrell, president of Satalink East, a Randallstown-based dealer and installer of the satellite systems.
"People want to get away from cable and away from the poor service they get from those companies," said Paul Bressler, assistant manager of the Bryn Mawr Stereo & Video store in Dundalk. His King of Prussia, Pa.-based chain advertises DSS as "The Cable Killer."
Michael Coyne of Rosedale is one of those customers the cable industry has lost -- not from dissatisfaction with cable but because of curiosity about the new technology. When he moved from Northwood recently, he decided to get DSS, and he said he has few regrets.
"The picture that comes in on the satellite is absolutely out of this world. They're very clear -- and the sound," he said. He said he's paying about $64 month for the maximum selection of programs on both of the networks on DSS.
But any losses the cable industry has suffered have been minimal on a percentage basis. Its subscriber base of 55 million easily eclipses the 250,000 claimed by DirecTV, the dominant of the two programmers on the DSS system. Even with the 200,000 subscribers tallied by PrimeStar, the rival direct broadcast satellite system owned by a group of large cable companies, there are more than 100 cable subscribers for each viewer who receives programs via one of the new satellite systems inaugurated last year.
"At the present time, we've seen no impact," said Stephen Burch, regional vice president for Comcast Cablevision, which serves Baltimore, Howard and Harford counties.
"It's been a glorious year for us," said Mr. Burch.
The Comcast executive said he hasn't heard of any subscribers cancelling cable service in favor of DSS, though he has talked with one or two dissatisfied satellite customers who wanted to get their money back.
"We're trying to get them to do some commercials for us," he said, noting that his company has been running an anti-DSS spot on its local channels.
"It's something we take seriously. It's competition," he said.
Stephen Effros, president of the Cable Telecommunications Association, agreed that the cable industry was not taking the challenge from DSS lightly.
In fact, he said, satellite TV could pose a more potent threat to cable than the much-publicized moves by telephone companies to enter the video arena.
"The real competition is between wired and wireless, not wired and wired," he said.
Digital quality
Most retailers agreed that DSS's biggest competitive advantages are its 150-channel capacity and the generally high quality of its digital audio and video signal.
"It's a quantum leap from the normal viewing of either cable or normal broadcast television," said Mr. Rakov of Circuit City.
Mr. Frazier said that one potential obstacle to DSS' market penetration had not materialized.
Instead of reflexively enforcing bans against all satellite dishes, homeowners' associations around Baltimore have been moving to amend their covenants to allow the 18-inch dishes.
"I've had not one association give my customers any grief about the dish," he said.
The big question for DSS now is whether its fast start can be sustained as shortages disappear.
Next year should answer Mr. Frazier's question: "Is it real excitement or is it lack of supply?"
Mr. Effros said he expects that the cable industry will have four rough years but that in the end it will maintain its pre-eminent position in entertainment delivery.
"What has finally happened is that people have been calling for competition a long time, and now we finally have competition, and, lo and behold, the competition costs more than we do," he said.