The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

February, 1954 THE CINE-TECHNICIAN 21 George Elvin writes on AMERICAN FILMS and BRITISH TELEVISION ONE of the measures of lasting value to the film industry taken by Mr. Harold Wilson, when President of the Board of Trade, was the ending of what he called the industry's nudity of statistics. He found there was scarcely any authentic factual information. Now we are regularly served. The latest document is the first nation-wide review of cinemas and cinema-going habits in this country since 1934 contained in a paper prepared by two members of the Board of Trade's statistical department and read before the Royal Statistical Society. The survey traces the decline of cinema attendances since the war which it attributes partly to reduced spending money but mainly to the impact of television. It shows that the decline in attendances is least in those places outside television reception areas and that as new television stations have been established the decline in attendances in the areas served by the new stations has been marked. These may have been due to people being determined to get full value for the money they have spent on their set and, of course, to the novelty. There may be some recovery and the recovery may be helped by the film industry's come-back weapons of 3-D, CinemaScope, Cinerama, etc. But the real draw of television or films will depend on the programmes. The public won't go to the cinema just because the screen is wide or the sound stereophonic : whether the film itself attracts them will be the ultimate issue. In the same way people won't continue to turn on a television programme because of the convenience of the set being at hand if the programme isn't one they want to see. That is why we were appalled to read the recent press announcement that Mr. Ronald Waldman, presumably acting with the full knowledge and approval of the British Broadcasting Corporation, is negotiating with American Companies to import for transmission on television a number of America's sponsored television programmes. A.C.T. has never agreed with the attitude of those British film interests who have resisted competition and co-operation with British Television by withholding supplies of their films. On the other hand it is no solution for the B.B.C. to try and overcome these difficulties by importing foreign programmes which are completely unsuited to transmission on British Television networks, a point which has been made by so many different interests during recent discussion in connection with Commercial Television in Parliament and elsewhere. Maybe the intentions announced by Mr. Waldman will make the Film Industry see that its policy is the wrong one and that the only sensible solution both in their interest, the interests of television and of the public is for agreement to be reached for co-operation Certainly, Mr. Waldman's proposals are no solution and if, during the present temporary difficulties, films are required to form part of the B.B.C. transmitted programme we would have thought that until such time as a sensible arrangement can be reached with British film interests he would either have used the B.B.C.'s own film unit to make additional productions, used other established film units to make programmes for exhibition or negotiated with independent film companies who may not subscribe to the industry's general policy. Meanwhile we feel this development is so retrogressive that we have asked the President of the Board of Trade to withhold import licences to the films mentioned by Mr. Waldman and are suggesting that he should take the initiative in calling a conference of all interested parties to try and find a modus vivendi between British films and television. Unless something is done along these lines we are all going to suffer : films, television, the public and those who work in the two media. Certainly, for A.C.T., we have suffered all too much and unnecessarily through the importation of inferior foreign film for exhibition in cinemas. Repeating the process in television will not only deprive British Technicians of employment they should legitimately expect but it will be a crying public scandal in every possible sense. O /? SO THERE ARE SUCH THINGS AS HUMANS AFTER ALL! Tom Stobart has arrived in Nepal as cameraman to "Daily Mail" expedition in search of the "Abominable Snowman"