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No, you never realize at the time that anything is important, really--other than it's horribly expensive. That's about all.

So that was a difficult decision, at that moment? Because of the cost?

Sure. It seemed to be the only way--it was a difficult decision, but it did promise the expansion across the nation of HBO. And we didn't see anyway of stitching the whole nation together. You would have had to have a tower every fifty miles in every direction to do it.

It's like putting another telecommunications system up in the country.

Yes.

With HBO ultimately becoming one of the major users of movies, did you ever get involved with HBO as more than a business? In other words, did you ever try to--did Time Inc. and you ever try to influence the direction or the quality of the films that HBO would buy, or have produced? [pause] Did you care about the quality of the films as much as you cared about the quality of the magazines?

The popularity of the film was a very important ingredient, and it's difficult to compare with magazines because in a