I HAVE PRAISED a number of the Daily Mirror's `Spotlight'
pamphlets in the past; they have been hard hitting, stimulating and sensible. More's the pity, then, that The Future of Television should have been included in the series. It is a blatant piece of propaganda for commercial television, obviously designed to whip up a campaign to hand over control of the third television network (when it becomes available) to commercial television rather than to the BBC. There is no reason why the Mirror should not plead a cause in this way, but I would have thought that it might at least have begun by declaring its interest—the Mirror! Pictorial group is a substantial shareholder in a commercial television company—rather than let- ting this fact emerge casually in the text. I would also have thought that the earlier writers in the `Spotlight' series would have rebelled at so palpably distorted a picture being published in the series they began. For the BBC it has nothing but sneers; for commercial television nothing but praise—or, where praise is impossible, excuses. A regrettable piece of work, in short : unworthy of its predecessors.
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