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In 1860, the riverbank trading post of Yankton so bustled with commerce that it was declared the first capitol of the Dakota territories. These days, however, the town of roughly 14,000 people in the southeast corner of South Dakota isn't quite the urban hot spot that it was in the days of, say, Lewis and Clark.

That doesn't mean the residents there can't have cutting-edge video service, as far as PrairieWave Communications is concerned. A combination ILEC/CLEC/cable company based in Sioux Falls, S.D., PrairieWave, like many larger cable operators, began offering high-definition television last summer in 32 markets across South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa. Looking to give potential customers an incentive to make the move to HD, late last year the company gave a free 40-inch HDTV set to a Yankton customer.

Bonnie Grooms (who wouldn't take calls from an outsider claiming to write for a trade magazine) beat about 1150 people who entered a raffle online and at PrairieWave offices. The company also brokered co-marketing deals with local appliance retailers like Clark's TV and A1 Appliance, knowing that the lone Best Buy wouldn't be interested.

“For one store in Sioux Falls, Best Buy won't deal with us,” said Craig Anderson, PrairieWave's chairman and CEO. (The company held a similar TV giveaway promotion when it rolled out digital cable two years ago.)

By now PrairieWave claims between 400 and 500 HDTV subscribers, and it offers all the HD programming locally available (about 12 channels, plus some premium sports and movie channels). Rural clientele aren't notorious early adopters of new technology, but that's OK with Anderson because it helps remedy the classic chicken-and-egg conundrum faced by all cable operators. Consumer demand won't kick in until there's HDTV programming, but programming won't take off until there's consumer demand for it.

“We're in an isolated area of the country,” Anderson said. “The [HDTV] adoption curve will be slower in our smaller markets, which gives us the advantage of being able to be ready with content when our customers are ready to make the purchase.”

Customers who are ready to make that purchase are in limited supply anywhere, but perhaps especially in PrairieWave's footprint. Yankton's median household income is less than $32,000, according to the 2000 U.S. Census.

“The gating factor is not our ability to offer [HDTV]; it's the cost of the set,” Anderson said. “You don't just walk in and drop four grand on a TV set.”

Which is exactly why the free TV promotion packs such a punch and why it could pay dividends in word-of-mouth advertising, assuming Bonnie Grooms is more chatty with the locals than she is with outsiders who write for strange trade magazines.