Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [4]
BILL RASMUSSEN:
When Scott and I talked with Jim Dover over at United Cable, he told us about something new coming along called satellite communication and said it was going to be the wave of the future. A couple guys over at United helped us try to figure out what the satellites did, but nobody really had any idea. Then someone said that RCA was doing a lot of this stuff in Europe and we should talk to those guys. We called in the middle of the afternoon, and a young guy named Al Parinello answered the phone.
AL PARINELLO, RCA Manager:
In 1978, I was one of two people hired by RCA to penetrate the cable-television marketplace and basically convince new emerging networks that satellite distribution of their television product—as opposed to terrestrial distribution—was the wave of the future. RCA had launched a satellite called SATCOM 1, but no one understood that this thing was real, that it actually existed. Think about it: you couldn’t see it, you couldn’t touch it, and there was no way to demonstrate that it really was up there 22,300 miles above the equator. So it was a concept sale.
The first deal that I made was with a reverend who called me and said he wanted to buy one or two hours of satellite time. I said, “Sure. Where is the uplink going to be?” He said, “We’ll use your New Jersey uplinking facility,” and I said, “Okay, great. Now, where do you want us to bring the signal down? We have facilities in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, wherever.” And he said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Well, where’s it going, where do you want the signal to go?” He said, “I want it to go to God.” I said, “What do you mean you want it to go to God?” He said, “This is a program that my parishioners and I have put together. It’s our message to God, and we want to send it to him by satellite. It’s just going out there; it’s not coming back.” So I said, “Okay.” It was a $1,200 or $1,300 deal. That was the first order that was ever on RCA SATCOM for cable television usage.
BILL RASMUSSEN:
Al wanted to get together and asked us where we were located, but we didn’t have offices. We asked Jim Dover at United Cable if we could rent the conference room there and he said, “Give me a $20 bill.” So that was the rent, and Al came and showed us all these diagrams of satellites and how this happens, and how that happens.
AL PARINELLO:
We’re talking pewter ashtrays, a big oak table, and china dishes that lunch was served on. Bill said, “This is our headquarters.” Little did I know that he had rented this beautiful room.
My first question was “What kind of programming are we talking about?” And the answer was we’re talking about regional sports programming—UConn sporting events, and so forth. I was confused. I’m like, “Bill, you need to understand that when you utilize satellite communications, your signal is going to go up to a geosynchronous satellite orbiting 24,300 miles above the equator. And because of that, anybody with an earth station anywhere can get your programming. So it seems to me that you shouldn’t just be talking about Connecticut sports, why not think in terms of doing something a little bigger?”
That was the moment I saw Bill and Scott look at each other like I had just hit a nerve.
BILL RASMUSSEN:
Wow, what an eye-opener.
AL PARINELLO:
I can still remember the conversation. Bill said, “Let me get this straight. You mean to tell me, for no extra money—for no extra money!—we could take this signal and beam it anywhere in the country?” And I said, “That’s right.” And then he asked again, “Anywhere