Renters Wooed By Digital Cable

As cable operators continue to lay the infrastructure to support installing digital cable boxes in homes, reports suggest that the technology is doing its job, that is, keeping subscribers at home to watch movies.Nearly 2 million cable households not are digitally wired and use digital boxes. Pay-per-view buy-rates are reportedly averaging 100 percent or better (a 100 percent buy-rate is equivalent to every subscriber buying one movie per month). Some digital systems report that they are getting two PPV movie purchases per household per month. It appears that subscribers with digital cable are receptive to the selection of movie choices and convenience that digital provides and this trend is expected to grow as the technology matures and HDTV movie broadcasts combined with multiplexed premium services become the norm for households looking for movies on demand. With digital delivery, interactive programming guides are now coming into their own and have been an early favorite of subscribers.Some industry sources estimate that the number of cable homes with digital technology will reach 3.4 million by the end of 1999 and 10 million by the end of 2002. All this will obviously have an impact on video rental as electronic delivery becomes much more convenient.