The Audio Interview: Todd Rundgren

Rundgren: No, I think that the videodisc may have some appeal for those with a dilettante mentality. But for most people, those who are increasingly practical about the way they spend their money, I don't think videodisc will prove attractive. The failure of the videodisc will be caused by the same afflictions that have affected the American auto industry, shortsightedness, greed, and a smug view that you don't have to cooperate with anyone else in order to make a product or an idea successful.

Other forms of media distribution, meanwhile, are overtaking the videodisc. Computerized information storage and retrieval is far more sophisticated than either cassette or disc, and it's possible to store any kind of information -- musical, numerical, graphic -- that way. You can digitize the music and store it in a form that is readable by laser. Beyond that is temporary storage on magnetic tape or bubble memory. Eventually, you will be able to store a record on a tiny chip and have access to any part of it immediately -- the so-called solid-state memory.

The videodisc people may manage to sell enough machines -- if they're lucky -- to amortize their long costly investment in hardware development, but that's only if they're lucky. Videodisc will probably end up being sold primarily to educational institutions rather than to the consumer.

Rundgren: ...die first or die last?

Rundgren: Of the three primitive technologies out there, the laser (Philips optical) system is the most sophisticated. But the primitiveness of the concept is still there -- the concept being that people will buy "hard" recordings that can't be disposed of or used over again.

One big problem with videodisc is that there is no intrinsic software; there is nothing available exclusively on videodisc. It may be that the big bosses in the videodisc field have realized that in the long term there will be more efficient ways of getting software out to the public, because these people are paying only minimal license fees for programs that have appeared in other media -- on TV, in theaters, etc: They're paying only a $1500 licensing fee, which in the video business just barely covers postage and handling for the tapes! Since the powers that be are not willing to establish a market for intrinsically videodisc oriented software, I think they're going to be stamped out by software distribution systems that give people a greater selection and a more convenient way of acquiring the things they're interested in. Two-way cable systems, computer-controlled cable systems, and satellite television: These are all media where the recording and playback mechanism can be "written over."

Rundgren: I'm told that there is already a system in the Los Angeles area that can order up anything you want in the way of information. Computer technology is obviously still advancing by leaps and bounds. And the cable systems are becoming cheaper and easier to implement all the time. Once a cable system is in place in the user's home, there are enormous advantages for both the artist and the software distributor. If you want to sell a videodisc, you have to convince people to go out to a store and purchase your particular disc, if indeed they have a videodisc machine in the first place. If you're dealing in cable, people are prone to using the things that are on the cable because they are there-- immediately available. The advertising for such programs is also easily implemented, in that the cable networks are advertising their programs in the same way that the broadcast television networks always have -- via in-house programming commercials.

Rundgren: It can be done. There are two-way cable systems, sort of an extension of the Qube system under development. [Qube is a cable network in operation in Columbus, Ohio which permits viewer feedback and commentary via a console in each viewer's home; many observers view it as the prototype of an interactive cable format that will be used in the future to sample public opinion, perform educational tasks, and permit at-home catalog shopping, among other things. -- Ed.] It should be possible in the future to tell what any particular watcher is watching at any particular time, such that it the set is turned on, the charges -- which incorporate the royalties -- can be added to a monthly bill.

Rundgren: Well, there will always be a recording process; it may well grow and become more expansive. The only element of the recording industry that must change is the distribution chain. What will disappear will be record stores -- outlets dedicated to a particular piece of plastic we call the phonograph record.

The remainder of the music industry should survive, and even burgeon into a larger industry. A record that sells five million copies today is a huge hit; with cable, it might be possible to sell five million copies of that record in a week. Think about the fact that you don't have to go through either the physical manufacturing process or the physical distribution process -- which together are as much as half of the final cost of a current record. You could charge less, and still be making more money, and with a potentially larger market. If the whole country was wired for musical programs the way it's wired into television, you could easily sell 20 million accesses, as you might call them, in a week.

Rundgren: How soon is soon? I don't think it'll be an everyday occurrence in any less than 1 0 years.

Rundgren: That's what most record companies are now. They finance productions, but not much else. Most record companies are acutely aware of the expanding video market, but they aren't as aware of how it's going to affect them as they should be. They don't see that the future of home entertainment will require complete multimedia entertainment production complexes.

Rundgren: The beginnings of such dispersal systems are already here, and I base my prediction on the fact that they have already, at these early stages, made the videodisc obsolete. You can get the movies that you would be buying on videodisc on Showtime or some other feature-film cable system, and in the long run your subscription rate for something like HBO (Home Box Office) or Showtime is much lower than the cost of buying videodiscs and the machine to play them on. That's right now, in 1981

Rundgren: Cable derives its income directly from the viewer; the person who watches pays for what he watches directly. Broadcast television has that person paying rather indirectly by buying the products advertised -- which, of course, incorporate the cost of broadcast advertising in their final prices. Broadcast television has already begun to be affected by cable and other systems in the reduction of viewership. They know that every time another person subscribes to cable, that person -- a serious television watcher -- is going to be spending fewer hours watching broadcast television. Hence all of the broadcast television networks are getting involved in cable ventures, and all of them would like to control cable.

One interesting side effect of this will be the effect of cable-broadcast competition on programming. If the broadcast networks cannot stamp out cable by buying it, they may attempt to eliminate FCC regulations on programming content -- including obscenity regulations -- in an effort to supply the lowest common denominator programs, unfettered by anyone outside. Ultimately, it may become a Supreme Court issue.

I'd like to emphasize, however, that just plain cable media distribution is not the answer; it's the two-way communication and the interaction that are essential. The end result of this capacity for interaction will be some combination of HBO, AT&T, and IBM -- a system by which people can communicate in audio and video forms with one another, with the government, and with all forms of entertainment. There will be access to electronic libraries, electronic mail, etc.

Rundgren: You can do it to some extent, but the special effects make themselves much more apparent in visual terms. If you have a dramatic presentation where an actor does a bad job of portrayal, you can't just cover it with psychedelic blobs falling across the screen. In that case, editing is the only option you have, so it's much more critical in video work to get the right performance, to have a good script to start with, and to get a clear idea of the direction you want to go.

Rundgren: Most musicians are not going to be extremely successful in video and they'll still have to maintain themselves as artists always have -- in live performances and in sound recording. There will be some who become successful with video, but we'll have to wait and see how soon that market develops. A videodisc done as well as it can be would cost a million dollars, and there's only one place you can go today to get that kind of money, to the TV broadcast networks. So unless they decide there is some marketability in this kind of musical multimedia production, it probably won't develop as a format for awhile.

Rundgren: There is very little. Most of the people involved in what little is being done in that field are seeking to exploit something, a promotional exercise of some kind. Of course, there isn't much of a market for multimedia musical material yet, either. We at Utopia Video are at this point doing all kinds of video productions just to keep the facility open, so that we'll be around when demand for those kinds of programs does develop.

Rundgren: Prior to the Sixties, when The Beatles became big hits, artists were foreigners in the recording studio, totally at the whim of the producer in terms of sound and so on. The priorities of the producer were always directed toward budget and commercial appeal. It wasn't until Sgt. Pepper that artists discovered they had rights in the studio, and that it was their obligation to understand what was going on and to utilize studio capabilities to the fullest. Ever since then artists have more or less determined what situation they wanted in the studio. The whole modus operandi of recording studios has changed. They are more comfort oriented to put the artist in a productive frame of mind; the facility is oriented toward his consciousness. Video studios have been more or less like old-style recording studios, especially since they are more expensive than sound recording studios. The technicians are in command and trying to keep their thumb on everybody. We've tried at Utopia to design a facility and maintain it in the more enlightened style of contemporary sound recording studios, and to give artists a clearer idea of their capabilities and options. If somebody wants to come in and do something in particular, we're there to try and help it happen.