Tele-TV (also known as Galaxy-TV and Pacific Bell Digital TV) was a media and technology company formed by

Bell Atlantic Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...

NYNEX NYNEX Corporation was an American telephone company that served five states of New England (Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont) as well as most of the state of New York from January 1, 1984 to August 14, 1997. History ...

Pacific Telesis Pacific Telesis Group was one of the seven Regional Bell Operating Companies, sometimes also referred to as "RBOCs" or "Baby Bells", created in 1983 in preparation of the breakup of AT&T as a holding company for Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell, Pacif ...

, and

Creative Artists Agency Creative Artists Agency LLC (CAA) is an American talent and sports agency based in Los Angeles, California. It is regarded as an influential company in the talent agency business and manages numerous clients. In March 2016, CAA had 1,800 emplo ...

in February 1995. The company, based in

Reston, Virginia Reston is a census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia and a principal city of the Washington metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, Reston's population was 63,226. Founded in 1964, Reston was influenced by the Garden City movem ...

, USA, set out to design a pioneering interactive TV service with a

set-top box A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of sign ...

that would allow customers to view

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of o ...

over copper phone wires.

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was to build the set-top boxes. Ex-CBS chief and former president of

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

Griffiths, Katherine.
Sir Howard Stringer, US Head Of Sony: Sony's knight buys Tinseltown dream.
''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', 18 September 2004

Howard Stringer Sir Howard Stringer (born 19 February 1942) is a Welsh-American businessman. He had a 30-year career at CBS, culminating in him serving as the president of CBS News from 1986 to 1988, then president of CBS from 1988 to 1995. He served as chairma ...

was hired as CEO, with ex-

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

executive

Sandy Grushow Sandy Grushow (born April 3, 1960) is an American businessman, and the CEO of Phase 2 Media, a board member for The Weather Company (parent company of The Weather Channel) and works with MediaLink in the role of senior media advisor. He is the f ...

as president.

Michael Ovitz Michael Steven Ovitz (born December 14, 1946) is an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He was a talent agent who co-founded Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in 1975 and served as its chairman until 1995. Ovitz later served as preside ...

, then head of

CAA CAA may refer to: Law * Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 of India ** Citizenship Amendment Act protests, Protests regarding the Citizenship (Amendment) Act * Copyright transfer agreement, Copyright assignment agreement, to transfer copyright to ...

, was to play a role as dealmaker between Hollywood and the company. The company spent US$500 million before halting operations in early 1997, although some subscribers had services through the end of 2001. Stargazer was the initial project, started in 1994 by Bell Atlantic's CEO

Raymond W. Smith Raymond is a male given name. It was borrowed into English from French (older French spellings were Reimund and Raimund, whereas the modern English and French spellings are identical). It originated as the Germanic ᚱᚨᚷᛁᚾᛗᚢᚾᛞ ( ...

, a VOD (

) market trial which successfully launched in 1995 - the world's first commercial VOD service - with 1,000 Virginia households.Bell Atlantic Corporation.

" ''PRNewswire'', 3 Oct 1998 This pioneering interactive research, data and design became the foundation for the Tele-TV service. At the time, Bell Atlantic CEO Ray Smith stated, "Before the communications industry is through, your computer will speak, your TV will listen, and your telephone will show you pictures." Tele-TV was originally intended to feed programming content to the video systems the Baby Bells were planning in the early 1990s, but the venture lost much of its Bell company support when the 1996 Telecommunications Act distracted them with the possibility of a much more lucrative revenue stream - long-distance service. The design and identity of the Tele-TV service was completed by 1996 - creative director Morgan Almeida and executive producer Peter Stonier had led global teams (English & Pockett, Pittard Sullivan Fitzgerald, PmCD ) to brand the service and design

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

s for interactive program guides. These pioneering interfaces won several patents and numerous major interactive awards.

Michael Bavaro Michael Bavaro is a filmmaker and creative strategist based in Boston. He grew up in Milford, Massachusetts and graduated from Fitchburg State College in Fitchburg, Massachusetts with a B.S. degree in communications and received the "Communic ...

was the senior designer and director and developed the promotional Galaxy channel. However, the project was impacted by technical challenges, increasing costs, and unanticipated market changes - primarily that the Internet took off faster than fiber-optic TV systems—and so the three Baby Bells shut the venture down.SALLIE HOFMEISTER.
Tele-TV Slashes Work Force.
''Los Angeles Times'', 5 April 1997 They found entering the long-distance market much more appealing than promoting interactive TV. In the end, only Pacific Bell successfully launched a service, with Bell Atlantic and NYNEX (who had merged) not having established systems outside test markets. Pacific Bell's system was via wireless cable and was eventually sold to and operated by an outside company until shutting down in 2001.

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References

See also