Barry Willis

There won't be any end to the blitz of new movies and television shows, thanks to an agreement reached late July 3 between members of the <A HREF="http://www.sag.org">Screen Actors Guild</A> (SAG), the <A HREF="http://www.aftra.org">American Federation of Television and Radio Artists</A> (AFTRA), and Hollywood film studios. Actors agreed to keep working beyond the expiration date of their old contract on June 30; discussions were said to be "amicable" and "low-key."

The cable industry continues to be the major obstacle to expanding the market for digital television (DTV). That's the view of the <A HREF="http://www.ce.org/">Consumer Electronics Association</A>, which in June asked the <A HREF="http://www.fcc.gov">Federal Communications Commission</A> to consider instituting what it termed "a capacity-based dual or multicast cable carriage rule" to encourage the growth of the format.

It's no secret that plenty of commodities cost more in Europe than they do in the United States. Gasoline, for example, is typically two to three times more expensive on the eastern side of the Atlantic.

There's a curious three-way war being fought over Direct Broadcast Satellite television. Further court action has been put off until June 12 in the antitrust suit brought by DBSer EchoStar and its parent company Hughes Electronics Corporation against competitor DirecTV. The lawsuit alleges that DirecTV has conspired with retailers to shut EchoStar out of the expanding market for satellite TV. DirecTV has approximately twice the number of subscribers as its smaller rival; in all, there are approximately 40 million DBS subscribers in North America.