Dish Is Selling Like 18-Inch Hot Cakes

First, there was the compact disc. Now comes the compact dish.

Finally, the affordable 18-inch satellite dish so many have been waiting for is here.

RCA is producing the dishes and accessory equipment--a digital receiver box and a remote control--with DirecTV of El Segundo, a division of GM Hughes Electronics, supplying the signal.

GM Hughes, with a total investment of $1 billion, has put two new communication satellites 22,300 miles above the earth, each with a signal strong enough to reach a smaller dish.

The 18-inch dish system, which went on the market in Los Angeles about three weeks ago, provides 150 channels. A system retails for $699.

The initial L.A. shipment of systems--about 10,000 to 250 retail outlets--sold out in two weeks, prompting retailers to begin restocking.

Eddy Hartenstein, the president of DirecTV, said expectations are to have this system in 10 million homes nationwide by the year 2000.

The compact dish could have a bigger impact on sports viewing than anything since the VCR.

Because of the channel capacity, sports fans will be able to get every sports network imaginable, including seven regional sports networks outside California, depending on how much they want to spend.

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The arrival of the compact dish is well timed, since the NFL this season launched its Sunday Ticket package for satellite dish owners.

DirecTV has made an agreement with the NFL that will allow it to offer the final five weeks of the season, beginning Nov. 27, to customers for $49.95.

The NFL Sunday Ticket and the ESPN/ABC college football pay-per-view packages have been big hits with those who can get them.

But to get the NFL Sunday Ticket, it takes an expensive and cumbersome satellite dish.

And most cable companies don’t have the channel capacity to offer all the college pay-per-view games that are available.

The 18-inch dish solves those problems.

If a consumer is interested, should he or she wait for the price to come down?

“It’s already reasonably priced, and if there is a reduction it won’t be until at least the middle of next year,” Hartenstein said.

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The Sunday Ticket package, which offers up to 12 NFL games each Sunday, seems to be popular with most sports-bar owners, who generally pay between $399 and $2,700 for it, depending on seating capacity.

But some have avoided paying the fees and are showing games illegally, arousing the wrath of the NFL. Last week, the league filed lawsuits against 20 Southland sports bars that were showing games without authorization.

The NFL also announced two hot line numbers, (800) 553-4NFL or (800) 313-4NFL, for reporting unauthorized showings. The NFL figures sports-bar owners who have paid will report competitors who have not.

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The bad part about the NFL Sunday Ticket package is that the sports bars are not allowed to show blacked-out Raider and Ram games, something they did before this business became legitimate--and controlled.

John Morris, co-owner of the Legends chain in Long Beach, Santa Monica, Costa Mesa, Redondo Beach and a new one in West Covina, believes he has a solution.

“If we could get Al Davis and Georgia Frontiere to lift the blackouts, I’d be willing to charge $5 a person at the door and turn all the money over to them,” he said. “That adds up to about $5,000 a Sunday from just our places.

“Figure in all the sports bars in Southern California, and I believe the Rams or Raiders could pull in around $300,000 every Sunday one of them have a blacked-out game.”

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Although the NFL Sunday Ticket package has been a plus for sports bars, the baseball strike and the hockey lockout have been killers.

Morris figures his business is off 25% at the four Legends bars that existed a year ago.

He says he will make about $250,000 less this October than he did last October, simply because there are no baseball playoffs or World Series.

“I’m just figuring the lack of baseball, but the lack of hockey hurts us too,” Morris said. “The really bad part is all the little people that get hurt--the bartenders and waitresses, food and goods distributors, people like that.”

Joe Cirivello, who with his brothers, Dominic and Angelo, owns a sports bar in Long Beach, protested the work stoppages Tuesday night with a Halloween lynching of baseball and hockey on the street in front of the bar. The hangings were complete with gallows, a hangman, a hearse, a drum roll and a trumpeter playing taps.

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New concept: Are you ready for this? Sports might be finding a new outlet--home shopping networks.

Merchandise Entertainment Television (MET), a new 24-hour home-shopping network in Solana Beach, Calif., will televise six of the California Cup races--the third through the eighth--Saturday from the Oak Tree meeting at Santa Anita.

In between the races, they will hawk merchandise.

MET this month also announced a three-year agreement with the Continental Basketball Assn. The network will carry two games a week when the season starts Nov. 19.

Can the NBA and other sports leagues be far behind?

TV-Radio Notes

The Fox crew working the Ram-New Orleans game last Sunday generally did a good job on a wild game, but the announcers could have done a better job of explaining why the Rams’ Robert Bailey could pick up a punt in the end zone and return it 103 yards for a touchdown. Many viewers were probably confused, thinking once the ball landed in the end zone it was a touchback. It appeared the Saints thought that. What announcers Joe Buck and Tim Green failed to point out was that the ball has to be downed if it doesn’t bounce out of the end zone. Most punts that go into the end zone end up bouncing out for an automatic touchback. Also, when Ram offensive line coach Jim Erkenbeck was accidentally knocked out by a Saint player on the sidelines, the announcers said it was special teams coach Wayne Sevier, no doubt causing his wife and family some concern. At least the mistake was corrected after a commercial break.

Up and comer: Harvey Hyde, former Nevada Las Vegas and Pasadena City College coach who does a weeknight sports-talk show for Las Vegas’ KDWN, has been doing college football commentary for Radio Sports Creation national broadcasts on the American Sports Radio Network (ASRN) this season. He did last Saturday’s UCLA-Arizona game and is scheduled to work the Notre Dame-USC game Nov. 26. Said Hyde’s boss, Richard Grishar, ASRN president: “Harvey is tremendous, a combination of John Madden and Hank Stram. He’s sees things nobody else does. The problem is that he is so good we probably won’t be able to hold onto him.”

Recommended viewing: “Sports Greats: One on One With David Hartman” makes its debut on ESPN Tuesday at 4:30 p.m., with profiles on Ken Griffey Jr., Troy Aikman and Hakeem Olajuwon. The series was created by Angela Wilder, wife of James Worthy, who is also an executive producer. Other executive producers of the show are Jim Spence, former No. 2 man at ABC Sports behind Roone Arledge, and Frank Wheaton, a Century City sports and entertainment agent. The show is produced and directed by Frederick Smith Jr. . . . Recommended listening: ESPN Enterprises and Tommy Boy Music are marketing a compact disc and cassette entitled “Jock Rock” that consists of songs, chants and cheers heard at ballparks and arenas. . . . Recommended for kids: An NFL Films series, “Grunt & Punt,” the first live-action/animated football show for kids, makes its debut on the Fox Kids Network Sunday at 11:30 a.m.

Baseball, anyone? Well, not quite. ESPN will televise a softball game Nov. 15 at 6 p.m. involving some of baseball’s biggest names--Mike Piazza, Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonilla, Jose Canseco, Bret Saberhagen, Ozzie Smith, Frank Thomas, and Matt Williams, to name a few. The game, already sold out, will be played Nov. 6 at UCLA Jackie Robinson Field. It is a prelude to an evening gala at the Beverly Hilton to benefit the Michael Bolton and Bonds foundations. . . . For the record: It was noted here last week that NBC did not show Raider quarterback Jeff Hostetler yelling at offensive lineman Bruce Wilkerson, but the incident was shown. . . . It was nice to hear commentator Bob Chandler, who is undergoing treatment for cancer at the USC Norris Center, back on the Raider broadcast Sunday.