ABSTRACT
Large numbers of viewers in the United States of America already have a choice of twenty to thirty different television programme channels available to them, from cable distribution systems and off-air receivers. For this reason there has not been the commercial pressure towards direct-to-home satellite broadcasting which has been introduced in many parts of the world, and especially in Europe, as a method of increasing the number of available programme channels. As an example, the vast majority of the residents of the United Kingdom generally had a choice of only four programmes until the coming of satellite broadcasting in 1989 and 1990 made three times that number readily available. Since the operators of the direct broadcast satellites have to find some method of encouraging new viewers to subscribe, it has not really been surprising that they have tried to offer incentives such as better pictures as well as more programmes, and this led directly to the development of the European enhanced and high-definition television systems that we have discussed in the last chapter, the MAC satellite broadcasts effectively opening the way for these improved broadcast systems.
