The Press MONDAY, JULY 13, 1953. British Television Policy

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27090, 13 July 1953, Page 8

The Press MONDAY, JULY 13, 1953. British Television Policy

The United Kingdom Government has stirred up a great deal of trouble for itself by its proposal to permit commercial television, such notable Conservatives as Lord Waverley (formerly Sir John Anderson) and Lord Halifax having joined the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, other church leaders, and a wide cross-section of public opinion in opposition. A similar division of opinion has been shown in British newspapers. The controversy has more than an academic interest for New Zealand, because soon or later this country will have television; and its nature must be influenced by overseas experience, particularly British experience. Although commercial television is, of course, supported by those who hope to profit from it, it would be a mistake to suppose that they are its only supporters. The “Financial “ Times ”, for example, believes that the demand for television service in Britain can be met only by some degree of private enterprise. The arguments for commercial television are that so great a social force should not be given to any monopoly (even one as responsible as the British Broadcasting Corporation);, that the corporation would have IQnited funds which would not pay for adequate programmes; and that commercial stations would have not only greater revenue but also the advantages of offering a choice of programmes and a variety of outlooks. Advocates of commercial television deny that it must be accompanied by vulgarity and the debasement of taste, and contend that proper standards could be enforced. The other side has been put by “The Times”, which asks whether proper standards are more likely to come from a motive force founded on the selling of goods or from a responsible public body directing television as a public service. Admitting the possibly cramping effects of a monopoly, the opponents of commercial television point to the generally recognised triumph of the television of the coronation as evidence of what the British Broadcasting Corporation can do. They distrust the idea of letting control of what may be the greatest social force of the next half-century slip out of public control. The very weight of its popularity and influence would make the proper policing of commercial television difficult, perhaps impossible. It is appropriate to recall that the 1949 Broadcasting Committee was also divided on the same principle in its report on sound and television broadcasting. The majority (seven members) took the view that to depend on sponsors for broadcasting would mean that “ the nature of the “ communication is in the last result “ dictated by wrong aims, and often “ takes forms which public opinion “in this country would reject. The “ committee believes that the people “of Britain want broadcasting " essentially as a public service. “. . . ” Mr Selwyn Lloyd, now a member of the Churchill Ministry, presented a minority report, arguing that the admission of sponsors (in conjunction with maintenance of a national public service) afforded a means of avoiding the dangers of monopoly, of giving traders a new facility and of improving the service. Three other members—the chairman (Lord Beveridge), Lady Megan Lloyd George, M.P., and Mrs M. D. Stokes—took an intermediate view, suggesting that a public broadcasting service might have its controlled and limited advertising hours, corresponding to newspaper advertising columns. It is not at all unlikely that informed British opinion is divided on much the same lines as the 1949 committee. The argument in Britain has, however, been conducted as though there were no intermediate course between a British Broadcasting Corporation monopoly and Ameri-can-type television. The “Econo- “ mist ” recently indicated two other possibilities: competition between two or more public service corporations (as was in fact suggested by the 1949 committee) and the provision of programmes by public service corporations, partly financed by advertising revenue. The “ Economist ” says that ideally the former would be best, but that, in view of the heavy cost of television, the latter should not be excluded from consideration. Since the Government is more or less committed to commercial television it may find a modified commercial system a way of mollifying some of the objectors in its own ranks. It will still be departing from the ideal, unnecessarily, it may well be thought.