LORD HAILSHAM is also, I fear, misinformed if he thinks
that American experience with pay-as- you-view television 'has not so far proved encour- aging.' PAYV has never been tried in America— nor, so far as 1 am aware, anywhere else. Perhaps Lord Hailsham was thinking of the experiment made in an American township of piping-in old films which viewers could watch for a monthly rental. This was certainly a failure; but it is not what the pay-as-you-view advocates are asking for here. PAYV (or PTV, as I see some people are calling it) would enable the viewer to pay for individual programmes—as it might be the Grand National, or My Fair Lady: a new film, or an opera from Covent Garden. It would have the advantage of letting viewers see what they want to see, and not what the rampart of quivering jelly or Detergo thinks suitable for them; and it would also mean that the promoters of and per- formers in the cultural and sporting events would be vastly better paid as well as better served by the medium.
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