Pay-As-You-View
By BRIAN INGLIS N its White Paper the Government promises I to take careful note of the Pilkington Com- mittee's arguments against Pay TV, but insists that 'there are urgent considerations in a con- trary sense'—a polite if roundabout way of say- ing that the Committee was talking nonsense on the subject: which it was. The arguments the Committee uses against Pay TV are unimpres- sive.
Let me begin by putting the case, briefly, for Pay TV. If I go to the theatre, it is to a play I want to see and am prepared to pay to see. There are, fortunately, enough people in and around London who share roughly similar tastes to en- sure that on any given evening there will be perhaps half a dozen such plays running; and there are also enough theatres to ensure that we do not prevent other people, of dissimilar tastes, from seeing plays they want to see. The same applies to cinemas, to clubs, and to enter- tainments of all kinds.
It has not so far applied to television because of the shortage of channels over which pro- grammes can be networked; a shortage which, though soon to be relieved by a second BBC network, is going to remain acute.
But Pay TV does not need a broadcast chan- nel. It can perfectly well go out over wires, and be piped into the home of anybody who wants it; without depriving his neighbotr, who does not want it—any more than putting in central heat- ing in one house deprives the next. All that I want is to be allowed, along with a few thousand —a hundred thousand?—half a million?—other people, to pay for what will for us be an addi- tional channel, but will cost other viewers nothing, and leave on the air all the kind of programmes that they are seeing today.
The Pilkington Committee says that this 'is necessarily much the dearest way of providing a service.' Would it object to oysters being more expensive than herrings, or theatre seats than a cinema's? So long as I am not making anybody else pay to subsidise my entertainment I cannot see that the cost is any business of the Committee.
But (it gees on) if Pay TV were commercially successful, 'it would certainly and significantly reduce the value to viewers of the present ser- vices.' Why? It is undoubtedly true that if Pay TV were allowed to develop, with no controls of any kind, it could work towards capturing so large a share of the popular market that the audiences for and, soon, the quality of the BBC and ITV productions would suffer. Self-evi- dently, if one channel can put on new, first-run feature films every night of the week it will collect massive audiences and vast profits, out of which it could well afford to buy up the best stars and programmes from the established com- panies. But this is not the Pay TV that we, the underprivileged TV minorities, are after.
All that we want are minority programmes of a kind that would make an insignificant dent in TV audiences. We will forgo Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra if we can have an early Chaplin or Duck Soup. We would like new West End pro- ductions, but only after they have had a fair run for the theatre's money (the theatre would also, of course, get a share of the profit from the TV showing)—and, incidentally, one great advantage of Pay TV is that it will enable plays to be given at their full length, with first-class producers and actors, many of whom now refuse to work for television.
The Pilkington Committee argues that it would not be possible to achieve these minority-satis- fying programmes by regulation. Again—why not? There are already rules which lay down what major events may not be monopolised by either the BBC or ITV; all that would be re- quired is a disinterested body to watch what Pay TV is doing, and gently dissuade it from joining the mass-audience race.
Finally, the Committee raises the objection to wired Pay TV, that it would not attain national coverage because for a time it will be impossibly expensive to transmit to outlying areas. Would the Committee have stopped the development of electric light in cities because remote country districts couldn't get it too? Would it have banned water closets in London because there was no plumbing in Llanwitfle? This is really massive fatuity.
So although in its White Paper the Govern- ment contents itself with saying that it reserves its decision on Pay TV, it will not be surprising if recent newspaper leaks are correct: that it is in fact planning to allow Pay TV trials in the near future.
But trials will be of value only if their limita- tions are understood. In any single area, the kind of minorities who would stand to benefit most from Pay TV are likely to be too small in number for specialist programmes to be profitable. There will inevitably be the same ten- dency for the Pay TV contractors as there was when commercial TV began, to go for more popular programmes to avoid going too deep in the red. The trouble with this is that as soon as large audiences have been attracted the lure of their profit will be immense; and the minorities will by this time have been irretriev- ably lost. If an opera audience (or any other minority) are to be wooed they must be from the start—with, say, one evening a month reserved for them, so that devotees can plan ahead. And this will not be easy in small area trials.
There is also the possibility that the distribu- tion of programmes may fall into the hands of the already established cable relay companies' As some of them are interlinked with commercial TV, this would obviously be a risk. In any case, a quick decision on Pay TV is desirable—as the pace is speeding up elsewhere. By a coincidence, the same week that the Pil- kington Committee reported saw the opening night of Pay TV in Hartford, Connecticut—the first break-through in the US. Once it establishes itself, there can be no question that it can revolutionise television for the dis- criminating viewer. If Pay TV were allowed to begin here, Britain would have a very good chance of setting the new standards, instead of meekly accepting standards, and very Prob- ably programmes, from abroad. It will be sad if the chance is lost.
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