ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 15, 1995 TAG: 9512150072
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-15 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: Associated Press
A 24-HOUR ALL-NEWS CHANNEL is in the works as well as an on-line service. MSNBC Online's goal is to provide NBC News video, sound, graphics and text via the Internet's World Wide Web.
NBC and Microsoft are joining forces to start a 24-hour all-news cable channel plus an on-line service that will enable computer users to watch the news on their PCs.
The network and the world's largest software company announced plans Thursday to start MSNBC Cable, a round-the-clock news channel, and MSNBC Online.
``This is the very beginning of the interactive world,'' said Microsoft President Bill Gates, speaking via satellite from Hong Kong. ``By bringing the power of these two operations to bear on this, we'll be able to be a leader and make the news far more attractive than it's been.''
Microsoft will pay $220 million for half of America's Talking, NBC's all-talk cable subsidiary; over the next six months, the Fort Lee, N.J.-based cable network will be converted into the 24-hour news operation.
In addition, NBC and Microsoft each will put up $200 million over the next five years to run both ventures.
``We'll try to be up this summer, officially, with the new service,'' NBC President Bob Wright said.
MSNBC Online's goal is to provide NBC News video, sound, graphics and text via the Internet's World Wide Web, accessible through high-speed cable modems soon to reach the market.
``We're taking the long-term view here that, over time, video will be an important data type, as well as the audio and text that are already available,'' Gates said.
A user could see a story on ``Dateline NBC,'' then explore it in depth on MSNBC Online, with ``point-and-click'' access to video clips, sound bites and historical background from NBC archives.
NBC News will have exclusive editorial control of both the cable channel and the on-line service.
In the United States, MSNBC Cable expects to reach nearly 20 million homes, with 35 million locked in by the year 2000.
Overseas, it would reach as many as 200 million homes through NBC Super Channel in Europe, CNBC in Asia and Europe, Canal de Noticias NBC in Latin America and NBC Asia, scheduled to begin operations in January.
To offer video on line, NBC and Microsoft are counting on the development of faster access to the Internet.
Most people with home computers connect to the Internet over phone lines with a modem. But several cable companies are working on allowing Internet access through cable, which moves data hundreds of times faster than a phone line.
CNN, received by 67.5 million households in the United States and millions more worldwide, has had the all-news cable field to itself since Ted Turner launched the cable channel in 1980.
Two weeks ago, News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch said he would launch an all-news channel. On Dec. 5, ABC said it would enter the global, 24-hour cable TV news business in 1997.
CNN was not impressed by NBC's bid. ``Every service they announced today, we've already got out there,'' said Steve Haworth, a CNN spokesman. ``Our home page on the Internet ... is getting 3 million hits a day.
``A 24-hour all-news cable network? We've got a few of those on the air as well,'' he said, citing CNN, CNN Headline News, CNN International and a financial service, CNNfn, that debuts next month. ``And if you're trapped at the airport, Airport Network.''
Analysts say it's too soon to say whether NBC will make money with yet another all-news channel.
``We don't think this is the end of CNN,'' said analyst John Reidy of the Smith Barney brokerage firm. ``I think we'd all agree that CNN is something of an almost priceless brand, like the Ford symbol or Kodak.''
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Robert Wright, president and chief executive officerby CNBof NBC, and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, shown on video from Hong
Kong, speak to reporters Thursday in New York. NBC and Microsoft
said they would form a joint venture to start a cable news channel
and related on-line service, to be called MSNBC.