Take One (Apr 1967)

good series of half-hours: say. three or four or thirteen ... I’d either have to be at my TV at 9:30 on Tuesday nights, without fail, or the series ‘would fall apart. Yet it seems crazy to turn down a night out for one half-hour TV series, no matter how excellent. Also, it’s hard to remember what was said in the introductory program thirteen weeks before, as the series wraps up to a mighty conclusion. With demand broadcasting, I can watch a series over a weekend, maybetwo or three episodes at a time. (At any’rate, ata rhythm, that suits my learning speed, not the scheduling problems of some network executive harassed by an impossible job.) This, of course, suggests that I can call back material from the network archives. I expect I’ll have to pay extra for it, unless the sponsor wishes to makeit available (I’ll see his message every time I see a program!). I’ll probably pay for backdated programs the same way I’d pay for other services on my commie: the information retrieval service from the computerized library network, the stock exchange data, medical information, legal advice, computer dating, or a game of chess with the machine. Now, in case this article should fall into the hands of the establishment (the CBC), perhaps I’d better explain what demand broadcasting means to the network. First, it'll mean they’ll put out less programs per week. Excused from the idiotic responsibility of filling 120 hours or more a week, they can concentrate (with perhaps hall that output) on competing with the commie’s other attractions, confident that no good program, no matter how obscure, would go unnoticed. Someone would seg it, the word would get around and before the week was out, the sleeper program would be famous. The bad program would waste nobody’s time but the critic’s. And he’s paid to look. Of course there’d still be public affairs, the live-from-Cape-Kennedy lift-off (which those who missed could see later that day), and the news and commentary. But these could be continuous, and if something caught our attention we could find out all about it. One of the most frustrating things about today’s news broadcasts is all the time they waste on disasters and political issues (or non-issues). No science news. No arts news, No news about model railroading or whatever my hobby might be. Just airplane wreckage and John Diefenbaker poorly lit in the corridors of Parliament summarizing rather badly what he said brilliantly in the House half an hour before. Who chooses what is news for me? Certainly not me. With the present pirate system, } I have no choice. With demand broadcasting, | I can listen to the headlines, choose the items I feel worth the time, and explore them in as much depth, and with as much background, as the whole system could provide. After gorging on the details, it is unpleasant to leave the world of the next medium and return to the insane system now being developed. Canada is opening up ETV. The States is opening up Public TV and Instructional TV. The Americans are trying to restrict cable TV and have banished subscription cable TV from California in a most irregular fashion. And everybody now seems to want to get hold of the Comsats so that they can have: the whole world watching their programs at the very same instant in time. The profusion is wasteful, increasing my frustration without really increasing my choice. There must be a principle here, a way to tell if a technological development is good or bad, or is being used wisely or no. In the final article, next issue, then, I’ll open the discussion on the moral issues raised by the next medium, by the commie, and see if we can’t figure out some rule of thumb to tell the good guys from the bad.