By Andrew Ferraro, Request Television
Since the launch of regularly-scheduled satellite PPV on November 27, 1985, many cable systems have dis~overed that their in-place hardware presents obstacles to full participation in this potentially profitable revenue stream. Specifically, their addressable hardware does not allow them to show multiple events in a 24-hour period.
The problem is this: Billing systems rely on a tag or address to identify a program service so the customer can be billed properly. With a monthly pay service, this is not a problem. In fact, tag levels were initially designed to work with monthly pay services.
It's not so simple with PPV where each event must be considered a different service, and the tag or address must be changed for each. Otherwise, the customer would only be billed for one view but actually would be able to see the complete days' programming.