Jerrold To Test Market Inexpensive Cable Quote Converter; Box Would Monitor 20 Symbols, Display On TV Set

A leading maker of cable television converters plans to test a low-cost device that allows cable subscribers to use their TV sets as quote terminals. If tests are successful, the Jerrold division of General Instrument Corp. would sell the device to cable systems, which could then market inexpensive quote feeds to subscribers.

"The idea was to make a very low cost, very easy to use device that had high utility," says Hal Krisbergh, executive vice president at Jerrold. The result is an $80 box a little smaller than a cable converter. The box monitors a quote stream and stores the latest prices on up to 20 symbols. At the touch of a button, the quotes and the subscriber's portfolio valuation are displayed on the TV.

The target customer is not the professional trader or even the PC owner, says Krisbergh, but "the residential user who picks up the paper to see how his stock's doing." A survey of cable households found that 46 per cent of subscribers are interested in looking at quotes on some regular basis -- though not necessarily daily. 15-20 per cent would like to see them daily. "If we get in the 5-8 per cent range of takers at $3-4/month, we've got a business," says Krisbergh.

Jerrold has made 200 of the boxes for a market test with a major cable operator. The boxes are designed to read the delayed Monchik-Weber Ticker III feed offered by Xpress Information Services. "There are lots of data feeds around," says Krisbergh. "We decided that the Xpress feed is already on many cable systems so why reinvent the wheel."