CABLE TV viewers in some parts of Ireland might have come across MSNBC - the Site on the Super channel. The Internet show boasts a computer generated co host, a rant slot with Cliff Stoll, and a nifty, closely related Web site (at http:// www.thesite.com).
Last week, just hours before US broadcasting authorities approved new rules granting digital TV licences to broadcasters, NBC and Microsoft's joint cable TV and Internet news operation jumped further ahead of the posse: it opened a futuristic, 115,000 square foot studio equipped with a remarkable array of technology.
The new fully digital "cyberstudio" (as it has already been dubbed) emphasises how seriously these two major players - are taking the prospect of interactive news. The companies wouldn't reveal the cost of converting the former warehouse several miles west of New York City. On recent reports that put the cost at $45-65 million, though, NBC News President Andrew Lack said "it was closer to $65 million".
Microsoft's vice president for news and commentary, Peter Neupert, said: "This facility is the next step in the implementation of our shared vision of how to change the way news is delivered.
Some time in the future, personal computers and television will merge. We have put a stake in the ground. That is a medium we want to own."
At the HQ, reporters, writers and producers will work side by side with Internet specialists, permitting a much more seamless integration of the various media - including online, cable and broadcast - encompassed by NBC's news operation.
The building will formally be opened this morning after MSNBC leaves its old studio in New Jersey. The 100 foot by 150 foot main newsroom is designed to make news production usually performed off camera - part of a high tech show amid smokestack industry motifs dashing with floor to ceiling digital effects and, of course, dozens of computer workstations and televisions. Exposed warehouse brick, tin ceilings and riveted girders are interspersed with video walls and robotic cameras that zoom about 120 workstations ringing a revolving anchor desk.
A 70 foot wide glass wall etched with the image of a circuit board separates the newsroom from the assignment desk that coordinates all NBC news gathering around the world. Seven satellite dishes sit on the building's roof. Launched last July, MSNBC is well beyond target, reaching 35 million homes - two million more than the forecast of cable companies for the year 2000.
Under the US Federal Communications Commission's new rules last week, TV station owners will be granted licences free of charge to begin broadcasting digitally. In exchange, the four major networks - ABC (owned by Walt Disney), NBC (General Electric), CBS (Westinghouse) and Fox (Rupert Murdoch's News Corp) must begin broadcasting digitally by the end of 1999 in the USA's 10 largest TV markets. They have agreed to go digital by Christmas 1998. The networks will still go on broadcasting in the older analog system until 2006, when most US households are expected to have TV sets that can accept digital transmissions.
Last week's airwaves giveaway has been heavily criticised in many quarters. The FCC says in 2006 the networks must return their analog licences to the government, to be auctioned to the public.
Digital TV offers crystal clear pictures and CD quality sound. According to the industry it represents the biggest change in TV viewing since the advent of colour in the 1950s. It makes a much deeper convergence of TV and computer technologies possible; for example, sports fans would be able to watch a baseball game and split their screen to receive up to the minute scores of other games over the Internet.
Meanwhile Intel, Microsoft and Compaq are to propose a digital TV strategy this morning at a broadcasters conference in Las Vegas. They will attempt to convince broadcasters to adopt their digital TV standards, to ensure PCs have a large role in home entertainment.