Newspaper Article

BUSINESS FORUM: THE BARRIERS TO INNOVATION; The Built-In Bias Against HDTV

Winston, Brian, Brian Winston is dean of the school of communications at Penn State Univeristy and author of "Misunderstanding Media."

1989

Overview

For those alarmed about America's supposed loss of competitiveness, digital audio tape - a technology that makes nearly distortion-free home recording possible - is the latest example of how the United States has lost its lead. But history shows that new technology often displaces existing technology slowly and with difficulty. This is just as true for digital audio tape as it was for the telegraph, radio and televison. Marconi's celebrated radio transmission of the morse letter ''S'' from Cornwall to Newfoundland in 1901 caused dismay to the Anglo-American Telegraph Company. In 1937, both the British and the Germans were using equipment that was essentially RCA's to run what were then considered to be extensive TV services. But in the United States, the F.C.C., in a conscious effort to control RCA's dominance over television's patents, was unwilling to allow the exploitation of the same technology. One monster monopoly, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, was felt to be enough - or rather too much by the regulators of the time. As a result, the introduction of commercial television was delayed in the United States by more than a decade.

• Publisher: New York Times Company
• Subject: COMMUNICATIONS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS / DIGITAL AUDIO TAPE PLAYERS (DAT'S) / HIGH DEFINITION TELEVISION (HDTV) / NEW MODELS, DESIGN AND PRODUCTS / RADIO / RECORDING EQUIPMENT / TELEVISION / WINSTON, BRIAN (DEAN)