The iTV Doctor PERSPECTIVE: QUBE

Dear Readers: 

Let's do the time warp again this week. We started our PERSPECTIVE series with Full Service Network (1994), then Video Juke Box (1988), followed by Talkback to Showtime (1981). Now we go back to 1977, and the granddaddy of interactive television.

It didn't last. The technology worked. The consumers liked it. It even had scale (once the system was built). But they shut it down. The most innovative work on television done up to that date, and maybe since. QUBE. The name resonates still. A legend to most, and a bitter disappointment to (us) old-timers. It gnaws at our memory like an unfulfilled dream. Could it return? I wonder who owns the rights to the name?

I watched a program the other day (link below)--Phil Donohue, live (in 1978) from the all-American city, Columbus, Ohio--interviewing QUBE VP, Vivian Horner. With a Columbus home audience of 540 households (no, I didn't forget to add zeros to that number), Donohue asked viewers, "Should couples live together before marriage?" followed by "The best age to get married?" Then, in typical Phil Donohue fashion, he went for the roundhouse punch: "Do you believe in abortion on demand?" (50% yes, 12% no, 39% only if the mother's life is in danger).

But it was live, and it was real (even though the numbers were tiny).

I've been on the Phil Donohue show (Jane and I made the rounds back in our non-profit days). Live talk shows DEMAND audience interaction--it's literally the lifeblood of the hosts. But the talk shows are "taped live" with a studio audience in real time, with precisely timed commercial breaks (fewer at the beginning of the show, more frequent towards the end). However, imagine what Oprah, or Ellen, or (heaven help us!) Jerry Springer would look like today if they were really done LIVE--if those people talked WITH us, not AT us. Live television just might be a thriving, rather than dying, business.

And if you are enchanted by the recent spate of "talent" shows (quotes are intentional...), then you'll be interested to know that at-home audience voting on amateur performances also began with QUBE. "Talent Search" brought QUBE subscribers a singing church lady, some 30 years before Susan Boyle. But in this case, 87% of viewers voted the performer off the screen (voting begins at :50):

 
Of course, the king of "vote 'em off" programming was Chuck Barris' "The Gong Show," which ran on NBC and in syndication at about the same time (1976-1980). But Chuck just had his judges. "Talent Search" had real, live viewers. Of course, nobody in television EVER borrows ideas from anybody else...
 
And for you John Lack fans, here he is in a 1980 interview for Cleveland's PM Magazine, describing the wonders of interactive television. Turns out, he was right on target (note: the video is mis-dated 1985; the QUBE segment begins at 1:55):

P.M. Magazine on "QUBE " - 1985!!!
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And speaking of John Lack, he is part of the ongoing debate about the parentage of MTV. Certainly "Sight on Sound" at QUBE revealed an audience (albeit small) for the nascent music video format. Mike Nesmith (of the Monkees) also claims credit for "inventing" the music video. And Robert Pittman, Fred Siebert, Todd Rundgren, and even Howie Mandel (a maniacal early VJ), all had their hands in the pot. But contrary to popular belief, there does not appear to be a direct lineage from QUBE to MTV. That being said, here is a 1982 QUBE-produced music video that has a suspiciously MTV feel: 
 
 
But it may have been movies that actually killed QUBE. In the same way that 1994's Full Service Network was initially conceived to deliver video-on-demand, one of the most attractive business models for QUBE's parent company (Warner) was pay-per-view movies. In its simplest form, PPV is nothing more than allowing a viewer to watch a specific channel during a specific period of time, and then polling the box to collect the log. In QUBE's case, the system polled the box. With satellite, the box calls home to mother every night. Essentially the same model.

Former QUBE exec, Scott Kurnit, in a Cable Center Oral History interview, explains it this way: "In Hartford, Connecticut, literally, you dropped tokens in a box on top of your television set to get pay-per-view in the early days of television. But QUBE was the modern day revival of pay-per-view and so the pay-per-view industry today really owes its gratitude to those 30,000 customers in Columbus, Ohio who were guinea pigs for all forms of interactivity. We were looking for the technical solutions to make it easier for consumers. And early on, consumers who liked it, loved it!"
 
When I spoke to him, Kurnit added that if it weren't for the competition between MSO's to win local franchises, QUBE itself could have been licensed across the industry: "It would have changed everything," he said.

But at the same time Warner was investing in QUBE, the cable industry developed the one-way addressable box. An addressable box did what the headend TOLD it to do (unscramble a movie channel, watch a PPV movie or event), instead of a QUBE box telling the headend what it wanted to do. Addressability could be deployed at a fraction of the cost of the full QUBE network: an apparently minor compromise in the consumer experience in favor of a major CAPEX advantage.

Judah Ken Freed, author of "When Cable Went Qubist" (http://www.media-visions.com/itv-qube.html) writes:

"QUBE illustrates how economics rule technology. By 1983, the cable industry had committed itself to replacing its standard converters with 'addressable' set-top boxes, which could be controlled from the headend without a feedback channel. A few keystrokes at the headend authorization center would tell a set-top box to display a scrambled premium channel or a pay-per-view program. Subscribers placed an order with a telephone call to a customer service representative (CSR) sitting in a boiler room. Addressability meant foregoing genuine interactivity, but it did open new revenue streams, and it could be deployed affordably. That was enough to squelch more expensive two-way proposals."

And, to add to QUBE's troubles, parent company Warner's Atari division hit the wall (hard!), forcing draconian cutbacks. "Anything that wasn't nailed down got shut down," said Kurnit.

But as said before, "consumers who liked it, loved it!" Our own Tracy Swedlow was a QUBE customer and fan. Here's what Tracy has to say:

"When I was a kid, QUBE was the interesting weird thing happening in Columbus, Ohio, which was about all there was of note. Our other options were mall shopping, bowling or staying at home. It's very different now in Columbus, but that was the late 70's and early 80's. I didn't realize at the time that QUBE was significant or unique: we were still trying to absorb as much television and movies as we could through newly available cable TV! But to be able to interact with the programming or have an influence on it was super cool.

"My father, knowing my obsession with TV and general curiosity about new technology and unusual things, heavily suggested I go to the offices and volunteer as an intern, but I was too intimidated to face all the adults down there so I stayed at home...unfortunately. I've heard, subsequently, those were good times at the studio.

"Later in my professional career (in the interactive TV industry), I would--and occasionally still do--meet someone who worked there, ran the place, or played the hand for Flippo (as Ken Papagan of Rentrak did). When you do, it is like meeting someone from a special club and they always have a sparkle in their eye when they speak of it.

"Even though I was solely a viewer and user, I have my own memories and nostalgic feelings for QUBE and the work accomplished there. Of course, I can't forget great personalities like Flippo who took a risk with his career to act as the front person for QUBE.

"I feel very lucky to have witnessed the birth of interactive television technology and programming in my own home town and I'm very proud of it. Sometimes, one is born in the right place at the right time."

So we had a popular, but expensive, consumer product, partially created to deliver movies (until cheaper technology came along) and to win franchises (which prevented licensing to competing MSO's). But the interactive experience, from content to consumer, was a model of almost everything we're trying to do today.

I wonder who owns the rights to the name?

And, finally...No article about QUBE would be complete without Flippo the Clown. So here he is now, explaining QUBE's demise (worth watching from start to finish):

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The iTV Doctor is *Rick Howe*, who provides interactive television consulting services to programmers and advertisers. He is the recipient of a CTAM Tami Award for retention marketing and this year was nominated to Cable Pioneers. He is also the co-author of a patent for the use of multiscreen mosaics in EPG's. Endorsed by top cable and satellite distributors, "Dr" Howe still makes house calls, and the first visit is always free. His services include product development, distribution strategy and the development of low-cost interactive applications for rapid deployment across all platforms. Have a question for the iTV Doctor? Email him at itvdoctor@itvt.com