PAY TV SIR,—Brian Inglis puts the case for Pay TV
so cogently that 1 hesitate to put forward some points he has overlooked.
The shortage of channels. This exists only if Pay TV is thought of as something which must be pumped through one or more channels exclusive to Pay TV. The problem would not exist if all channels —BBC and ITV and the proposed two new ones— used part of their time operating Pay TV, People with 'minority tastes' are not likely to be the sort who want to glue their eyes to a TV set for hours on end, day after day, so no channel need devote a prohibitive amount of time pandering to them. To ensure that the paying viewer should always have a choice, it could be arranged that there should never be a 'Pay' programme on any channel unless there be another 'Pay' one at the same time on one of the other channels. And, of course, throughout all broadcasting hours there would never be less than two channels with 'free' programmes—all four for most of the time.
The danger that Par TV might aim for the mass audience. This would be guarded against by the fact that every 'Pay' programme, apart from being in simultaneous competition with another 'Pay' programme, would always be competing with the 'free' channels. The 'Pay' programmes would have to aim for an audience quite different from that which continued to be content with the type of programme it enjoys today. Nobody is going to pay Is., 2s. 6d. or 5s. for something little different from what he can get for nothing.
The system used for Pay TV. Brian Inglis perhaps regards this as outside the scope of his survey, but it is a vital consideration. 'Subscription TV.' for instance, would not achieve what both Mr. Inglis and I want: namely, that we pay only for the individual programme we select. 1 should not want to pay a subscription covering several programmes in a week, when I might find only one of them worth turning on. It would be grossly unfair finan- cially to the one I wanted and paid for, and an unwarrantable subsidy for the programmes which were not to my taste and which I didn't look at. I must be allowed to choose my programmes indi- vidually—by money-in-the-slot or a recorded charge, or by whatever comparable means the electronic brain can think up.
I should perhaps add that I have no financial interest, direct or indirect, in any particular system. I simply want Pay TV for the same reasons as Brian Inglis.
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