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[[collage of newspaper clippings]]

Queens EDITION Newsday
25 CENTS
THURSDAY,
NOV. 19, 1981

Panel Picks 7 Cable TV Firms
15 Companies were competing to serve 4 boroughs; Board of Estimate has final say

By Dennis Duggan
Newsday New York Bureau Chief

New York—The City of New York yesterday took a giant step toward wiring the four boroughs outside Manhattan for cable television, targeting seven of 15 firms for the choicest plums ever dangled before the growing cable television industry.

"At last we are on our way toward cabling the entire city," said Hadley Gold, Assistant Corporation Counsel for the city who has sat in on all 12 meetings during the past year of the Cable Working Group, an ad hoc city group that has been evaluating the various bidders for cable contracts.

But Robert Kandel, chairman of the group and an aide to Mayor Edward I. Koch, warned, "We are only halfway through the cable television marathon."

And the possibility of suits from some of the disappointed losers was [[text cut off]]
[[image]]

Inner City Group Bids $10.7 Million For Satellite Transponder!

Inner City Broadcasting Corporation this week joined the most powerful communications companies in the world.

Inner City Broadcasting Corporation, the owner of WBLS-FM, the nation's No. 1 radio station, and WLIB, the nation's premier Black News and Talk radio station in New York, has now entered the field of cable television in full force.

On Monday, November 8, Inner City placed a winning bid of $10,700,000 for a transponder on the new RCA Satellite auctioned at the York Avenue office of the prestigious Sotheby Parke Bernet Galleries.

Competing among the world giants of cable television and investment companies such as Home Box Office, Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment Company, Rockefeller Center, and others. Inner City Broadcasting's bid of $10.7 Million was one of seven transponders auctioned on Monday.

The $90.1 Million in winning bids was a record for a Sotheby auction. The highest bidder for any of the seven transponders [[text cut off]] $14.4 Million. The lowest bidder was Inner City with its $10.7 Million bid.

50 Companies PResent

More than fifty companies and individuals were present at the auction and [[text cut off]] according to Pierre M. Sutton, President of Inner City Broadcasting, the transponder on the RCA Satellite to be launched on January 12, 1982, is essential to Inner City's effective expansion in the field of cable television.

Inner City's bidding at the Sotheby Parke Bernet Gallery followed days and weeks of planning. The auction was attended by seven Inner City officers and staff persons, headed by Mr. Sutton, Inner City's Chief Executive Officer.

For FCC Approval

The bids are now subject to approval by the Federal Communication Commission. The winners will be required to demonstrate their financial capabilities, RCA executives said, but they will not have to pay until late in January. The FCC has until Jan. 15 to disallow the auction if it decides to do so.

Transponder

Transponders located on communication satellites are used for receiving radio and television signals from an uplink facility on the ground and relaying those signals to radio and television facilities known as earth stations on the ground in other parts of the country for delivery to radio, TV and cable television stations.

Mr. Sutton stated that Inner City will, among other things, use its transponders for transmitting its Black Music Television programming to be launched on July 4, 1982. This programming will be paid for by Cable Television subscribers and advertisers around the country.

Sutton stated that "In addition to the use of the satellite transponder for relaying our Black Music Television programming, it will be used for transmitting radio programming to our radio stations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Detroit, as well as to an Inner City related radio network."

In addition to its radio stations in New York City, Inner City Broadcasting owns WLBS-FM in Detroit; KBLX-FM and KRE-AM in Berkeley-San Francisco; and KUTE-FM and KGFJ-AM in Los Angeles; as well as an investment company, Amistad DOT Venture Capital of New York City, Inner City Management Consultants of New York, and Amistad Electronics, a printed circuit board manufacturing facility in Grand Prairie, Texas.

An Inner City Broadcasting Corporation subsidiary, Inner Unity Cable Television Systems, is a joint venturer with the National Black Network in a cable television franchising effort in Queens County, New York City.



Percy Sutton, chairman of Inner City Broadcasting Corp. and former Manhattan Borough president, picked up T-16 for $10,700,000, the day's low price. Other transponders fetched up to $14,400,000.

Having solved his distribution problem, Mr. Sutton is sure he can clear systems speedily for a July 4, 1982, launch of the Black Music Cable TV Network (AA, July 7).

In choosing the auction route over the first-come, first-served [[text cut off]]

An even more obscure name, Billy H. Batts, a Chattanooga Church of God electronic minister, made the second-highest winning bid—$14,100,000 for T-3. Mr. Batts [[text cut off]]


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