"In 1978, I was one of two people hired by RCA to penetrate the cable-television marketplace and basically convince new emerging networks that satellite distribution of their television product – as opposed to terrestrial distribution – was the wave of the future. RCA had launched a satellite called SATCOM 1, but no one understood that this thing was real, that it actually existed. Think about it: you couldn’t see it, you couldn’t touch it, and there was no way to demonstrate that it really was up there 22,300 miles above the equator. So it was a concept sale.
"The first deal that I made was with a reverend who called me and said he wanted to buy one or two hours of satellite time. I said, 'Sure. Where is the uplink going to be?' He said, 'We’ll use your New Jersey uplinking facility,' and I said, 'Okay, great. Now, where do you want us to bring the signal down? We have facilities in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, wherever.' And he said, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'Well where’s it going, where do you want the signal to go?'He said, 'I want it to go to God.' I said, 'What do you mean you want it to go to God?' He said, 'This is a program that my parishioners and I have put together. It’s our message to God, and we want to send it to Him by satellite. Its just going out there; its not coming back.' So I said, 'Okay.' It was a $1,200 or $1,300 deal. That was the first order that was ever on RCA SATCOM for cable television age."
— according to Al Parinello, RCA Manager
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