TV takes step into cyberspace

Television in the United States will take a tentative stepalong the information highway this morning with the launch of anambitious 24- hour news service operated jointly by the NBC networkand the computer systems behemoth, Microsoft Corp.

Formed from a $500m joint venture unveiled only seven monthsago, the new channel will attempt to challenge directly the primacyof Ted Turner's Cable Network News (CNN), which has had the fieldvirtually to itself in 24-hour news programming since itsfoundation 16 years ago.

The birth of the new service, to be known as MSNBC, is likely totrigger a fierce battle in the industry for news viewers globally.Rupert Murdoch's Fox television company is also preparing to jointhe fray with its own all-news channel later this summer. Similarplans were recently shelved by ABC, owned by Disney, because ofinflated costs.

MSNBC is attracting intense curiosity also because of itspromise to fuse traditional television viewing with the Internet.An interactive version of the cable news service will be carriedsimultaneously on a World Wide Web site managed by Microsoft(http://www.msnbc.com.). Viewers will be encouraged to refer to thesite for further details and context of individual news stories.

"Visionaries have said, 'Oh yes, some day the computer and thetelevision screen will come together,'" commented Mark Harrington,the general manager of MSNBC. "Well some day turns out to be 15July. What happens after that, we'll invent one day and one storyat a time."

Executives have rushed to introduce the service in time to catcha peak period of news in the United States, beginning with theOlympic Games, which open in Atlanta next weekend, and the finalstretches of the presidential campaign, which culminates with theelection itself in November. President Bill Clinton is to betonight's inaugural guest on Internight, an interview programme tobe put out daily in evening prime time.

There will be nothing coy about MSNBC's determination to take onCNN, meanwhile. Several weeks ago, a giant billboard advertisingthe new venture was posted across the road from CNN's headquartersin Atlanta bearing the cheeky message: "The future of cable newsfrom the people you know."

As its primary weapon, MSNBC has at its disposal not only NBC's1,200- strong corps of journalists but also the network's mostfamous household names. Among these is NBC's veteran evening newsreader, Tom Brokaw, who will conduct the interview with Mr Clinton.

CNN, meanwhile, has the advantage a world-wide brand identityfor delivering round-the-clock news. Crucially, it also has acommanding presence on America's overcrowded cable distributionsystems, with access to some 65 million US homes. To make way forthe MSNBC, NBC is being forced to close down "America's Talking",an all-talk cable channel it launched two years ago. That service,however, has only made inroads into 16 million homes.

Finding space on cable is also a critical challenge for Fox.Rupert Murdoch recently offered cable operators $10 as a cashincentive for every viewer given access to his putative all-newsservice. It was that manoeuvre that persuaded ABC to throw in thetowel. Even more strikingly, Mr Murdoch also last month offeredTelecommunications Inc (TCI), America's largest cable operator, a10 per cent stake in his new service in return for a guarantee thatit would be automatically offered to TCI customers.

A danger for MSNBC, meanwhile, is that its launch may be comingtoo soon for the interactive side to be fully developed, whichcould lead to disappointment for users of the web. Technology thatwould allow full video of the cable news service to be played onthe web is barely available yet and critics point out that CNNalready has several web sites of its own. NBC executives predict,none the less, that within a few years more people will beaccessing MSNBC by computer than on their televisions.