Atlanta Audiences To Make Television History Watching Live HDTV Broadcast Of John Glenn Shuttle Launch.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 28, 1998--Some lucky Atlanta residents will be taking part in television history October 29 as they watch Senator John Glenn liftoff into space in live digital high definition television (HDTV).

Thirty-six years after Sen. Glenn's first launch was captured in black and white, Atlanta will be one of 20 cities where some residents will be able to view Harris Corporation's HDTV broadcast of Sen. Glenn's historic launch - the first live HDTV broadcast of a space launch.

In Atlanta, WSB plans to transmit the broadcast to audiences at area Circuit City stores on Thursday afternoon.

Nationwide, broadcast network affiliates from CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox and PBS, along with other providers, are scheduled to transmit the broadcast to viewing sites in Washington, D.C., New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and 15 other cities. Audiences there will be watching the launch on new digital receivers and projectors during special events at museums, stores, broadcast stations, and other locations throughout the country.

The largest scheduled viewing site is the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., where thousands of viewers are expected to watch the broadcast. (A complete listing of stations and sites participating in the broadcast follows this release.)

The Harris Corporation broadcast will include a 70-minute telecast transmitted live from Kennedy Space Center with assistance from WRAL-HD in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the participation of the NHK Japan Broadcasting Corporation. The broadcast will include live launch coverage and a network news-style program featuring high definition interviews by WRAL with Sen. Glenn and former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite, who covered Glenn's first launch into space. It also will include converted historical footage of the space program, and other live and recorded segments. Mary Alice Williams, formerly of CNN and NBC, and Pete Conrad, an Apollo astronaut who walked on the moon in 1969, will co-anchor the program, which is scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m. EST.

Viewers will also see Procter & Gamble commercials representing several of their product lines, including Tide, Scope, Pampers, Head & Shoulders, and Bounty.

The live HDTV launch broadcast sets the stage for the beginning of the rollout of digital television in the U.S., which is targeted to get underway November 1, when about 40 stations will be broadcasting digital signals in markets across the country. Many of those stations have moved their on-air dates ahead of schedule in order to show the Harris broadcast.

"At the very moment that Sen. Glenn soars toward space aboard the space shuttle Discovery, history will have been made not only for the space industry, but for the broadcast television industry," said Phillip W. Farmer, chairman and chief executive officer of Harris Corporation. "The live nationwide HDTV broadcast of this historic launch marks a new era in television -- just as Sen. Glenn's launch into space 36 years ago marked a new era in space exploration."

Harris Corporation is overseeing the production and broadcast of the program. WRAL-HD, which in 1996 became the first station to send out a commercial digital signal, is providing technical input, editing equipment, and several high definition vignettes that were shot in Houston and Washington, D.C. NHK Japan Broadcasting Corporation is providing high definition production equipment and engineering expertise through NHK Enterprises America, Inc., and will transmit a delayed broadcast of the program over its HD network in Japan.

Eastman Kodak Company is transferring the nearly 40-year-old, archived NASA film footage to high definition television on the Philips SPIRIT Datacine. Kodak also filmed and transferred footage of the DTV Express and the space shuttle for several of the vignettes that were used in the show, using the same process that networks will use to prepare much of their current television, movies, sitcoms, dramas, and commercials, for primetime digital broadcasts.

Other organizations involved with the Harris broadcast include All-Stars Communications, EF Data, Newtec America, Turner Engineering, Inc., Unity Motion, Vinten, Rave Productions, and Jaleo North America Incorporated. Television set manufacturers loaning products include Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Zenith, and Panasonic.

Harris Corporation

Harris Corporation is the leader in advanced transmitter equipment and systems for digital television. Harris has signed agreements to provide DTV transmitters for hundreds of U.S. television stations, including sixty percent of the stations scheduled to be broadcasting in November. Harris has also provided complete transmitters for six of the nation's seven experimental DTV stations: WCBS (New York), WRAL (Raleigh), WETA (Washington, D.C.), KCTS (Seattle), Oregon Public Broadcasting (Portland), and WHD, the U.S. model station located in Washington, D.C.

Harris Corporation, with worldwide sales of $3.9 billion, is an international communications and electronics company focused on providing product, system and service solutions that take its customers to the next level. The company provides a wide range of products and services such as wireless and personal communications, automotive electronics, transportation, business information, defense communications and information, and Lanier Office products. -0-

Location             Provider              Viewing Site
Atlanta, GA          WSB                   Circuit City Stores
Boston, MA           WCVB                  Museum of Science
Chicago, IL          Unity Motion/Zenith   Museum of Broadcast Comm
Cincinnati, OH       WXIX/WKRC             Procter & Gamble Hdqrts.
Columbia, SC         Harris/PBS            DTV Express
Columbus, OH         WBNS                  Station
Dallas, TX           WFAA                  Circuit City Stores
Detroit, MI          Unity Motion          Detroit Palace
Houston, TX          KHOU                  Johnson Space Center
KSC, FL              Harris Corp.          Kennedy Space Center
Los Angeles, CA      KCBS/KTLA             Stations
Milwaukee, WI        WMVS/WMVT             Stations
New York, NY         WCBS                  Station
Portland, OR         KOPB                  Museum of Science/Industry
Quincy, IL           WGEM                  Quincy Senior High School
Raleigh, NC          WRAL                  Station
Seattle, WA          KCTS                  Soc. of Broadcast Engineers
                     KING                  Magnolia Stores
St. Louis, MO        Unity Motion/Pioneer  Unity Motion Office
Washington, D.C.     WHD-TV/WRC            NASA Headquarters
                                           National Press Club
                                           Nat'l Air & Space Museum

Editor's Note: To view the broadcast, set up an interview, or for further information, contact Jim Burke at 407/727-9126 or [e-mail] or Neal Stein at [phone] or [e-mail]. Additional information on Harris is also available on the Internet through our World Wide Web address: http://www.harris.com/