Video Games: Pay TV At Your Door

"Hold on to your television set!" the Galaxy sales pamphlet screams. Is someone trying to sell, sorry tell, us something? I take their advice and a firm grip on my television and peer inside to try and see the newest show on the box: user-pays television.

Your coin in the slot, plenty of fuel at the ready, infra-red laser gun in hand (cunningly disguised as remote control) and you're ready to press the start button on the latest and most expensive video game in town, all from the relative safety of your living room.

It's a game with many unexpected twists until now fought out in federal cabinet, board rooms and Hollywood restaurants, and played by some of the world's best video game players. Some, like the now-defunct Cable Television Services, used up their credits, saw GAME OVER on the screen, and went home.

Others are luckier, tenaciously navigating the regulatory and legal mazes, and, guns blazing, stepping nimbly over the government auction trap then, triumphant, hurrying off down endless financial corridors leading to the next game level, collecting point s and prizes as they go, a tinny electronic rendering of Wagners' Ride of the Valkyries ringing loudly in their ears.

Just then, the Deathstar satellite, 30,000 kilometres overhead, beams down its deadly electronic ray on the hapless minions below. The Galactic defenders retaliate with microwave blasts fired from towers in the centre of the city - at least from Centrepoint Tower, if you're in Sydney.

Are we having fun yet? Up until now it seems others have been monopolising the game, not letting us - the potential subscribers - have a go. After all, we really just want a turn at the controls ourselves. What will we find after the video whiz kids have had their go at designing the perfect "mind candy" - the game of pay television - one we want to keep on playing, time after time? Can we stand the suspense?

Unfortunately for the government who wanted satellite pay television as the first pay provider, it appears instead the ten channel Galaxy microwave service is the first name we'll see because it's the only game in town at the moment. They'll have new movies, old movies, sport, music and the other "killer" programs available for your home-delivered video game. Later, we're promised interactive programs that you don't just watch, you experience.

Many other big players, including News/Telstra, Optus, Continental Century, the other satellite licensee, ABC and SBS all want in. Still others wait in the wings.

Finally, we can see what all the fuss is about and whether Australia's claimed world's best free-to-air television menu can be bettered and improved upon. Forget the doubters, forget the twenty year wait for pay television in our corner - or is that end? - of the world, forget the messy battle for the two satellite pay licences, forget we've been paying for television - as video hire - from our local shop for years already. Put it all behind you and make your choice. You reach for your coins ...

Suddenly, you notice other video machines in the arcade, flickering with enticing images. In one darkened corner, playing another bigger game, is the familiar figure of Rupert Murdoch, whose News Limited has a joint venture with Telstra to provide a rival multichannel cable service starting late 1995. News will be supplying movie channels and other standard pay fare and Telstra hope to supply on-demand and other multimedia services including home shopping, banking, and a range of business and educational applications. Telstra are confident their cable network has an edge over the other, rival services, and intend to offer the service "fairly soon", according to a spokesperson for Telstra Multimedia.

The ABC are shortly to announce their own partnership to provide two new mainstream pay channels. SBS is working on several narrowcast channels, including movies, world news and educational channels. The Optus Vision version of pay television plans its twenty channel service for late this year or early next year, to include video and phone calls through the one cable connection. We can expect announcements of new services to come thick and fast this year.

So, walk right on up and step this way into the video arcade, there's surely a game for you inside. But bring your money with you.