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69-487: Qube or Qubes may refer to: Science and technology [ edit ] Qube (cable television) , a former cable television system Qubes OS , a security-focused desktop operating system Cobalt Qube , a server appliance produced by Cobalt QUBE, a virtual learning software program by OpenQwaq QuBE (Quantum Effects in Biological Environments),

138-568: A DARPA project Video games [ edit ] Intelligent Qube , a 1997 puzzle video game Q.U.B.E. , a 2011 puzzle video game Q*bert's Qubes , an arcade video game published in 1982 Buildings [ edit ] The Qube (Detroit) , Quicken Loans office building in Detroit The Qube (Vancouver) , a distinctive "hanging" building in Vancouver, BC, Canada Companies [ edit ] Qube Cinema ,

207-401: A big marquee name was the way forward to achieving greater prominence and ultimately securing the league's long-term dream—a network television deal. The idea of bringing Pelé to America had actually been around for a while as NASL commissioner Phil Woosnam and eventual Cosmos GM Clive Toye discussed it as far back as 1970 and even made an approach to the player in spring 1971, one month after

276-627: A company that makes digital cinema servers Qube Holdings , an Australian transport company Qube Research & Technologies , London-based quantitative investment management firm Qube Software , London-based makers of 3D software Q (game engine) Other [ edit ] The Qube, a component of the game show Qubit See also [ edit ] [REDACTED] Search for "qube" on Misplaced Pages. All pages with titles beginning with Qube All pages with titles containing Qube Cube (disambiguation) Kube (disambiguation) PocketQube Topics referred to by

345-598: A desire to have a soccer club created and Ross, a fan of sports in general, obliged. Following the 1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico that the Erteguns used to further establish contacts in the soccer world by throwing lavish parties, one of which was attended by Pelé, the brothers came back to New York and held Ross to his promise. In turn, Ross and longtime associate Jay Emmett reached out to eight other top executives and convinced them to contribute $ 35,000 each towards establishing

414-586: A faster method for groups to communicate and interact, across distance." Warner used the Qube system to acquire valuable cable franchises, with which it would build and create cable monopolies in several large markets throughout the country. Warner Qube was "awarded" cable franchises in cities such as Houston , Milwaukee , Dallas , Cincinnati, St. Louis and Pittsburgh . Many of the fundamental aspects of Qube became important parts of television: pay-per-view and on-demand programs, MTV and Nickelodeon . Qube itself

483-399: A father figure: "Steve was very much what I wish my father was," Steven Spielberg said. Spielberg dedicated his 1993 film Schindler's List to Ross. In 1976, Warner Communications purchased Atari, Inc. and had great success with its Atari 2600 consoles. But by 1983, Atari collapsed in the wake of the video games crash that same year, leaving Warner Communications vulnerable to

552-438: A hostile takeover. Rupert Murdoch tried to buy Warner, but Ross was able to impede him by selling 20 percent of Warner to Chris-Craft Industries (then controlled by Herbert J. Siegel ). In 1979, needing financing to further expand its cable television business, Ross partnered with American Express , convincing its executives on the potential of selling AmEx credit cards direct to Warner cable TV customers. Warner-AmEx Cable

621-602: A huge step forward in the US–Brazil relations . Pelé's arrival created a media sensation and overnight transformed the fortunes of soccer in the USA. From the moment he signed his contract at the 21 Club on June 10, 1975 in front of ecstatic Ross and a crush of worldwide media, the player's every move was followed, bringing attention and credibility to the sport in America. His debut NASL match five days later versus Dallas Tornado at

690-543: A national survey, but this information could potentially be traced directly back to the respondents. Although Warner-Amex assured subscribers that their personal information would be kept private, such data was valuable to merchandisers, political groups and other organizations. Even if subscribers trusted Warner-Amex's commitment to privacy, there were still concerns regarding the ability for computer hackers to potentially steal information collected via Qube. Consequently, non-renewals became more numerous, ultimately contributing to

759-565: A new soccer franchise that would compete in the struggling North American Soccer League . The franchise called the New York Cosmos was created in early 1971 with Englishman Clive Toye as its first general manager and 37-year-old Gordon Bradley as the player/coach. Playing out their debut season in almost empty stadiums with virtually no media coverage, the Cosmos were a rag-tag semi-professional operation, but most importantly Ross

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828-559: A regular sight in the Cosmos locker room and in the luxury boxes at the Giants Stadium. Other changes were in order too as general manager Toye and head coach Bradley got fired and Tampa Bay's Eddie Firmani became the new coach. The team's striker Chinaglia was said to be the driving influence on Ross to hire Chinaglia's good friend Firmani as Chinaglia and Ross developed a personal relationship. Chinaglia thrived under Firmani, scoring goals one after another. The team's play as well as

897-484: A separate company that would lease out the vehicles in the evenings. The company was solidly profitable and enabled Ross to obtain bank financing to start a rental company, Abbey Rent a Car. He later merged Abbey with a parking lot operator, the Kinney Parking Company , which was then owned by underworld crime figures Manny Kimmel and Abner Zwillman , and added an office cleaning business (which

966-440: A short lifespan of seven years and multiple shortcomings, it occupies a unique place in media history since it was a venture that led to other innovations in the television industry. Among other things, it triggered the birth of several innovative cable television networks, such as MTV and Nickelodeon , contributed to the growth of infomercials, and introduced instant television ratings. According to Everett Rogers , it also became

1035-478: A single show: Pinwheel , which would go on to air on Nickelodeon from the latter's launch in 1979; Sight on Sound, a predecessor to MTV ; a weather channel; a learning channel; and a channel filled with locally produced programs that showed off QUBE's interactivity. The first Qube box was issued as a test for 4 months to the family of Mr. and Mrs. Walter B. Kesler, in Hilliard, Ohio . The Kesler family watched

1104-695: A year of the merger, Ross became the sole CEO. By 1989, Time Warner owned Time , People and Sports Illustrated magazines (the three largest advertising draws in American publishing); the Warner Bros. studio in Hollywood; the Warner , Atlantic , Elektra and Asylum record companies; Warner Books ; DC Comics ; Home Box Office and some of the country's largest cable television systems. Ross moved before many of his competitors to bet heavily on

1173-666: Is also known for helping to popularize soccer in the United States. Ross was born Steven Jay Rechnitz on April 5, 1927 in Brooklyn , New York City, the son of Jewish immigrants. His father—who lost all his money during the Great Depression —changed the family name to Ross in hope of finding work with fewer struggles. Ross attended Paul Smith's College for two years and then joined the U.S. Navy . After his military service, he went to work at his uncle's store in

1242-523: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Qube (cable television) A closed-circuit television system at the Hotel New Otani Tokyo in Tokyo , Japan inspired Steve Ross , Chairman of Warner Communications , to wonder what could be done to improve the performance of Warner's tiny cable television division. Ross was intrigued by

1311-557: The Garment District in Manhattan. In 1953, he married Carol Rosenthal, the daughter of a Manhattan funeral home owner, Edward Rosenthal , who operated the largest funeral company in the United States, Riverside Memorial Chapel , where he accepted employment as a funeral director. After noticing that the limousines used in funeral processions were not being used at night, he convinced his father-in-law to let him establish

1380-457: The Columbus interactive channel plan. The initial Qube service debuted with 30 channels (a large number of cable channels at the time), including 10 pay-per-view movie channels (a then-new feature for cable TV); 10 broadcast channels (from Columbus, Cincinnati , Indianapolis , Canton , Akron , and Cleveland ); and 10 community channels. These community channels included one dedicated to

1449-467: The Cosmos had been formed. However, in 1975 with Ross willing to spend the big money, conditions were finally there to make the dream transfer happen. He sent Emmett, Toye, Cosmos vice-president Raphael de la Sierra, and Nesuhi Ertegun to Brazil where they met with 34-year-old Pelé at a seaside resort and played soccer with him on the beach. Since by this time Real Madrid and Juventus also started sniffing around Pelé in an attempt to bring him to Europe for

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1518-444: The Cosmos. With the new giant home, Ross decided to Americanize the experience of going to a Cosmos game with cheerleaders, halftime show, and mascots. On the field, however, the squad got internationalized even further with a roster that had players from every corner of the world. Attendance rose slightly to just over 20,000 in the first five games (3 of which Cosmos lost), but still not enough to Ross' liking. In search of more people in

1587-433: The Qube systems for two hours per night during weeknights. One of the most popular programs on Qube, Soap Scoop, wrapped up the daily events on each of the national soap operas . Guests on the show included producers and actors from the various programs. The show frequently polled viewers on their opinions regarding characters and plots. By 1982, Warner Cable was running at a $ 99 million loss, and by 1983, their total debt

1656-472: The Qube systems were gradually phased out. The last Qube boxes were phased out in 1984. In addition to financial issues, privacy concerns increased among subscribers to Qube. Personal information about a family's specific interests, political views and other personal information could be stored in a database after it was processed during an interactive Qube session. For example, a program could ask viewers to identify their favorite political candidates as part of

1725-748: The US including meeting with FIFA president João Havelange , but in May 1983 FIFA decided on Mexico as the replacement host. The United States eventually hosted the World Cup in 1994 . Ross was married three times: Ross died on December 20, 1992, due to complications of prostate cancer , from which he suffered in his final years. Three months later , when Clint Eastwood accepted the Best Picture Oscar for Unforgiven , he dedicated it to Ross's memory. Warner Bros. Studios has named its theater on

1794-422: The attendance also started to pick up – led by Pele's hat-trick, the Cosmos finally managed to avenge the losses to Tampa Bay by beating them at home in front 62,394 fans. However, this was followed by another inexplicable dip in form with five losses in seven games. Ross reacted immediately, throwing more big money into the squad, signing Brazil national team's former inspirational captain defender Carlos Alberto who

1863-460: The biggest of which was 29-year-old temperamental Italian striker Giorgio Chinaglia from S.S. Lazio . The striker became an undeniable goal-scoring hit on the pitch with 19 goals in 19 league appearances that season, but his style of play as well as his egotistical and arrogant manner also got him many detractors both within and outside of the club. However, he endeared himself to Ross as the two soon became very close friends. Due to increased interest,

1932-414: The broadcasts that were intended for a larger audience, and caused the eventual push in programming that would affect how cable formatted shows would be put together based on their viewing habits. The Keslers' children, Lori A. and Kurt W., are regarded to be the first product of the "cable generation." To 30,000 homes scattered around the city and its suburbs, the goal of Qube was rather simple: "To create

2001-464: The cable television business by purchasing various small cable companies. Ross competed directly with the Big Three television networks that dominated television broadcasting, believing in the potential of narrowcasting whereby separate cable channels were developed to target specific audiences with narrower interests, mirroring the radio station model. This pioneering approach led to the creation of

2070-538: The cable television universe is now filled with hundreds of channels, specializing in many topics. Other projects that Ross supported were not as successful as MTV and Nickelodeon, but certainly left a mark in television and helped shape the TV we are enjoying today. One important project was QUBE . Qube was launched in 1977 in Columbus, Ohio and was Ross' vision of how television could become interactive. Although this trial

2139-438: The channel line-up. Customers would remove the old guides and slide in the new ones. On the top of the remote was a hole in which a "key" (really just a magnet in a proprietary plastic holder) was inserted to unlock viewing of pay-per-view programming, which could be billed in much the same way as modern cable pay-per-view programs are. Without the key inserted, restricted channels displayed a default access denial screen. Though

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2208-700: The country's national treasure, getting him to leave his homeland for the first time in his career involved a lot of politics as well, especially when the Brazilian president demanded that Pelé play another year in Brazil for the "good of his people". Ross called on his political connections in an attempt to soften the Brazilian government's position and eventually managed to get to the US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger , who personally called his Brazilian counterpart telling him that Pelé's move to New York would be

2277-851: The demise of the Qube experiment. Warner Cable's expanded cable service in Columbus and Cincinnati continued to use the Qube name following its shutdown. Warner Cable began installing a fiber-optic cable network in Columbus in December 1989, resulting in the Qube name being phased out in the area. Warner Cable ended its use of the Qube name in Cincinnati in November 1990. Initially, there were forty analog video channels that were arranged in four clusters: ten broadcast TV channels, ten satellite channels, ten pay-per-view channels (billed monthly), and ten channels that included interactive services: Qube promised an interactive gaming channel, Qube Games, that

2346-673: The dilapidated Downing Stadium on Randall's Island was broadcast live on CBS network. It was the Cosmos tenth match of the season and led by the Brazilian, who recorded an assist and a goal, they managed to come back from two goals down for the 2–2 final score. The contest was also Pelé's first competitive match in eight months since his last outing with Santos FC in October 1974. He would eventually end up with 5 goals in his debut season during which his biggest challenge became figuring out how to fit into this team of journeymen players with abilities far inferior to his. Still his biggest impact

2415-571: The early playoff exit, Ross immediately took the team on an exhibition summer tour of Europe with stops to play friendly games in England, France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy. Though hugely expensive, the tour generated plenty of publicity for Warner Communications. The 1977 NASL season —Pelé's final season before retirement—began at the newly built Giants Stadium in New Jersey as New York Cosmos dropped "New York" from its name to become just

2484-472: The end, the deal agreed was a complex five-part contract worth around $ 4.5 million in total that included $ 1 million for three years of play, $ 1 million for ten years of marketing rights, $ 1 million for a fourteen-year PR contract, and another $ 1 million for a music contract. Warner Communications money thus managed to lure arguably then still the biggest name in soccer out of retirement. In addition to huge amounts of money, due to Pelé's special status in Brazil as

2553-499: The entertainment business by purchasing the Ashley-Famous talent agency (founded by Ted Ashley ) and then in 1969, Kinney paid $ 400 million for the ailing Warner Bros.-Seven Arts film studio and television and record business. Three years later, after spinning off its non-entertainment assets, Kinney National Services renamed itself Warner Communications with Ross as co-CEO from 1969 to 1972. In 1971, Warner expanded into

2622-426: The first media enterprise that raised serious concerns about large-scale user privacy issues. Qube served as an incubator for a large number of media innovators. Some examples of people who worked on Qube, moving on to other technological and media innovations, are: John Carey of Columbia Institute for Tele-Information summarized the legacy of Qube by saying that it, ... demonstrated that pay-per-view programming

2691-470: The first time, the Cosmos delegation used the possibility of making soccer big in a country new to the sport as their main lure and by the end of the day, the Brazilian agreed in principle to come to New York. The actual negotiation with Warner Communications lawyer Norman Samnick, who was deployed to Brazil by Ross, turned out to be a little more difficult: Ross was willing to risk $ 2 million for three years of play while Pelé demanded $ 5 million for two years. In

2760-405: The first widely successful video game console to millions of homes around the world. For several years, Atari was a lucrative business for Warner Communications , but in 1983 it collapsed. Although many of Ross' overly ambitious projects failed, some of these failures shaped future success in the video game and cable industries. Known for promoting and popularizing soccer in the United States, Ross

2829-540: The launch of My Fair Lady on Broadway; and super-agent Ted Ashley , whose talent agency was Ross's first show-biz acquisition. Pioneer Electronics was hired to "build the box" that would transform the cable TV service in a few hundred thousand households into a device that was intended to change the entire entertainment landscape. The service was first launched in Columbus, Ohio, amidst considerable national and international press coverage. Hauser dispatched young New York City executive Nyhl Henson to oversee and direct

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2898-609: The potential of delivering Warner Bros. movies directly to home subscribers. At the time, Warner Cable was a small division of Warner Communications, run by a former Western Union telecommunications executive and attorney, Gus Hauser. Ross surrounded Hauser with entertainment industry executives, including Jac Holzman , who had sold his Elektra Records to Ross in 1967; Mike Dann , the CBS programming wizard responsible for The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres ; former CBS general counsel Spencer Harrison, an executive involved in

2967-487: The principal lesson of the Qube experiment is not that interactive media can't compete with traditional one-way mass media. Rather, interactive media must be developed in a viable economic and technical context. Steve Ross (Time Warner CEO) Steven Jay Ross (born Steven Jay Rechnitz ; April 5, 1927 – December 20, 1992) was an American businessman and CEO of Time Warner (now Warner Bros. Discovery ), Warner Communications , and Kinney National Services, Inc . He

3036-475: The prominence his arrival brought to the Cosmos franchise – started bringing over more big-name aging foreign stars such as George Best who was about to turn 30, 31-year-old Rodney Marsh , 34-year-old Geoff Hurst , and 35-year-old Bobby Moore . Since the Cosmos failed to make the playoffs in Pelé's debut season, for the next season , Ross decided to complement his superstar with more prominent names from overseas,

3105-439: The record company co-founded by Nesuhi's brother and also soccer enthusiast Ahmet Ertegun . The two brothers worked for Ross in the early 1970s after Atlantic got bought in 1967 by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts that in turn got bought by Ross's Kinney National Company two years later. When Nesuhi Ertegun had a business opportunity that would require leaving the company, Ross offered anything in an attempt to keep him. Ertegun expressed

3174-409: The room, which was significant since many TVs at the time had no remotes for changing channels. The buttons were split up on the remote, with ten buttons numbered 1 - 10 down the left-hand side, five larger buttons down the right hand side, each with a corresponding red LED indicator, and three buttons across the bottom of the remote. The three big buttons across the bottom chose which category of channel

3243-405: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Qube . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Qube&oldid=1258502538 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

3312-737: The seats, Ross decided to raise the bar again. He reached for the checkbook midway through the season and looked oversees for more big stars, signing 31-year-old German superstar Franz Beckenbauer from Bayern Munich in May 1977. The German's debut was a 4–2 loss away at Tampa while the following week Cosmos beat Toronto at home in front of 31,000 fans. Ross was happy with the attendance increase, but wanted even more and to that end enlisted celebrities that did business with Warner Communications to make publicized appearances at Cosmos home games. People like Barbra Streisand , Mick Jagger , Phil Collins , Robert Redford , Muhammad Ali , Quincy Jones , Andy Warhol , Henry Kissinger , Steven Spielberg , etc. became

3381-538: The service launched with thirty channels, the remote actually supported up to sixty (twenty in each category) and this capability was eventually used in some markets with externally-owned popular national networks and superstations available over satellite. Pressing one of the 1-10 buttons would select the first channel in that slot; pressing the same button again would toggle to the second channel. Stickers were provided to customers to update their remote, and new channel cards listed two channels per slot. Although Qube had

3450-454: The set-top boxes in six seconds. A computer would record the information and then display the results on the television screen for everyone to see. In the middle of these three rows of buttons was a clear plastic window that held a channel card with station names and logos arranged in a grid corresponding to the ten "row" buttons on the left and the three "column" buttons along the bottom. Channel cards were mailed to customers with each change in

3519-473: The stands. The Cosmos finally won the title defeating Seattle Sounders in the Soccer Bowl during late August as Beckenbauer became league MVP and Pelé retired in style. In November 1982, when Colombia, the originally selected host of the 1986 FIFA World Cup , gave up on organizing the event, for economic reasons, Ross called upon all his soccer connections and campaigned hard to bring the tournament to

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3588-469: The successful cable TV channels MTV and Nickelodeon which were both later sold at a great profit. In 1972, Ross was appointed CEO, president and chairman of Warner Communications . He introduced an incentive-based compensation program and delegated responsibility to his middle managers. His support and commitment to his employees, combined with lucrative financial incentives and a hands-off management style, inspired deep loyalty. Many employees saw him as

3657-498: The team moved to Yankee Stadium. Though the Brazilian midfield organizer and the Italian striker quickly developed an uneasy relationship, thanks to their assists and goals, respectively, the club managed to make the playoffs, losing to underdogs Tampa Bay Rowdies led by Rodney Marsh in the conference semifinal series 3 games to 1. Pelé still got the league MVP honors and Chinaglia became the league's top goalscorer. Though furious over

3726-517: The time. The merger was seen as a perfect fit: Warner's business was 40 percent international while Time's business was 91% percent domestic; Warner had no magazines while Time had 23 titles; Warner had the world's largest record business while Time was not involved in music; and both were big in the capital intensive cable business where economies of scale mattered. Originally advertised as a combination of equals with both Ross and J. Richard Munro of Time Inc. listed as Co-Chief Operating Officers, within

3795-545: The two companies. By this time, MTV and Nickelodeon became meaningful endeavors in their own right under the leadership of Bob Pittman and Geraldine Laybourne respectively. Through the early 1980s, Qube was either up and running or already built in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, and St. Louis. Warner Cable now had 200,000 subscribers; the new figure accounted for roughly 1 in 10 U.S. cable television subscribers. Pittman led an unsuccessful effort to buy MTV; there

3864-404: The viewer would watch: pay-per-view, broadcast, or community broadcasting. The ten buttons down the left accessed each of the ten channels in that category. The 5 buttons down the right-hand side corresponded with the interactive aspect of the Qube. They allowed a television program to ask viewers a question with five possible answers. Answers to polls taken via the Qube box could be collected from

3933-568: The worldwide potential of cable television, records, videos, and other experiments. Some of his ideas were successful and others failed, but he influenced the development of media and entertainment with his ideas. "If you're not a risk-taker," he once said, "you should get the hell out of business." Ross's early interest in cable television helped him envision narrowcasting —cable channels created for specific audiences— MTV and Nickelodeon were expressly launched and developed to serve young audiences. Today, these two channels are still successful, and

4002-522: Was $ 875 million. Warner Cable brought in American Express as an investor, and the two companies formed Warner-Amex Cable Communications with a widely-recognized board of directors, including American Express chairman Jim Robinson and President Lou Gerstner , and the former head of Shearson/American Express , Sanford Weill . Warner bought out American Express after the latter made an offer to buy Warner's position, leading to conflicts between

4071-440: Was about to turn 33 years of age. He joined the squad with only four games remaining in the 1977 regular season. By this time, the attendance was rising sharply as the team as well as the league started to catch major buzz. The summer of 1977 was the franchise's first true foray into big time: on August 14, the Giants Stadium was sold out for the Cosmos first game of the playoffs against Fort Lauderdale Strikers with 77,691 people in

4140-405: Was also an unsuccessful attempt at a public offering. Gus Hauser was gone; taking his place would be President Reagan's Transportation Secretary, Drew Lewis . Lewis renegotiated with municipalities to ease the burden to Warner of some of the cable franchise deals. However, in order to keep the cable operation going, Warner-Amex Cable went out to sell MTV and Nickelodeon to Viacom a year later, and

4209-448: Was amongst the group of people who founded the New York Cosmos in 1971. Backed by his employer Warner Communications, the club brought soccer superstars Pelé and Franz Beckenbauer , as well as other prominent players such as Carlos Alberto , Vladislav Bogićević , Johan Neeskens , and Giorgio Chinaglia . Ross was introduced to the sport during the late 1960s by one of his business executives Nesuhi Ertegun from Atlantic Records ,

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4278-426: Was established and Warner received a much needed capital injection. AmEx's cross-sale expectations never materialized and in 1984, Warner bought out American Express's remaining share. The cable TV business eventually became the cornerstone of the company until being spun off in 2009. In 1989, Warner Communications was merged with Time Inc. in a $ 14 billion deal creating the largest media and entertainment company at

4347-426: Was hooked and very much interested to see the team do well. Scared of losing money, the ten original investors sold their stake in the franchise to newly created Warner Communications (the company where Ross was CEO and chairman) for $ 1. Essentially, with the sale, Ross added the modest franchise to the vast media empire he was in charge of running. Following the first few seasons in obscurity, Ross decided that signing

4416-449: Was jointly owned by the funeral home and a cousin of his father-in-law). Kinney was taken public in 1962 with a market valuation of $ 12.5 million. In 1964, Kinney purchased wood flooring manufacturer Circle Floor from Seymour and Paul Milstein for $ 15 million with Paul remaining as manager of the unit until 1971. Ross was company president and moved the firm from downtown New York to 10 Rockefeller Plaza . In 1966, Kinney expanded into

4485-532: Was not successful, it was an important step for what became known as advanced television. In some ways, the Qube project failed because it was ahead of its time. QUBE led to further attempts by Warner to integrate more services to cable television. Prominent among these was the Full Service Network that was launched in 1994 in Orlando, Florida . Ross also supported Atari from 1977 to 1983, taking

4554-597: Was on the sport in New York and the rest of America as Cosmos' home attendance got tripled in just half the season he was there. They also played in front of huge crowds on the road since everyone wanted to see Pelé – towards the end of the season when he pulled a hamstring and couldn't suit up, 20,000 fans in Philadelphia showed up just to see him in street clothes. Furthermore, the league's profile got raised as other NASL teams – encouraged by Ross' investment in Pelé and

4623-425: Was potentially viable—if the cost of promoting and processing pay-per-view orders could be reduced. And, Qube introduced a number of interactive formats that have since evolved and been adopted as components in cable and broadcast programming. MTV and Nickelodeon—two popular cable services in the U.S.—were both developed from models that originated on Qube. In this sense, Qube was an important programming laboratory. ...

4692-434: Was successfully installed and used in half the homes in Columbus, and the interactive results showed a high volume of participation from viewers who had the Qube box and remote. The later remotes added five additional buttons for a total of ten options, and became wireless . After launching a few other systems beyond Columbus, Qube created an interactive network in Columbus, which sent live, interactive programming to each of

4761-537: Was supposed to award prizes, such as free service credits. Qube Games was intended to launch on channel P-8 on January 31, 1978, but it never materialized. In April 1978, the community and pay-per-view channels were re-arranged: The Qube remote was a book-size box with 18 buttons on it that sent signals across a long tether cable to a box with no display, but otherwise similar in size and function to modern cable set-top boxes. The remote had feet for tabletop use, but could be hand-held (probably two hands) and passed around

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