A Spectator's Notebook
I AM not sure what it will mean, but the BBC's decision not to compete with the ITA for a mass audience must be right, if only because it has already lost the contest. But it would have done better to admit that it has been defeated than to pretend that it has never been in the race—particularly as only four days earlier it had said it was 'concerned' at its loss of viewers to the ITA. The Director of BBC television, after saying that 'only in the most superficial sense' could the two systems 'be regarded as alternatives,' went on to say that they (the BBC) must see to it that 'at least one of our channels' (by which he meant the BBC) is modern, up-to-date, and devoted to satisfying the require- ments of an educated democracy in the making.' But the democracy which has had the benefit of thirty years of BBC education has already decisively voted with its sets for the ITA. And a democracy that has had the benefit of an 1TA education is not likely to return the compliment. Presumably Dr. Charles Hill is now hatching a master plan to break the future ITA monopoly and to bring freedom and competitive broadcast- ing to television.
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