of television.12 Similarly, line 21 of the VBI may not have enough available bandwidth to transmit the desired programming codes if they are too complex. This would cause a more drastic departure from the closed-captioning technology. Another line of the VBI would have to be used which could complicate things tremendously. The demand for use of the VBI is growing rapidly since it is a means of rapidly transmitting data to a large number of people. In British Columbia, the VBI is being used to transmit such things as weather forecasts and warnings, weather charts, and even satellite pictures.5 Since VBI space can be leased to companies wishing to provide information to the public, the television industry would be extremely reluctant to use additional space for non-profitable information such as rating codes. Not only would the additional VBI space be difficult to obtain, the televisions would need two full sets of decoder circuitry, one to decode the closed-captioning information on line 21, and separate circuitry to decode the rating information on a different line. It would cost more to manufacture the two sets of chips than simply one redesigned chip, and it would cost the television manufacturers more to redesign the architecture of their televisions to accommodate the additional circuitry. Therefore the additional costs per television may be well above the estimated $40. Most of the financial burden, however, would lie on the broadcasters. Not only would the televisions need new circuitry to receive the rating signals, the broadcasters would need to either upgrade their closed-captioning encoders or install new encoding equipment to generate the V-chip signals and insert them in the VBI. Phil McLaughlin, director of business development for EEG Enterprises, a manufacturer of VBI insertion equipment, says that the additional encoding equipment would probably cost the broadcasters around $5,000, plus another $1,000-$2,000 needed for ...
