§ Mr. Masonasked the Postmaster-General whether it is his intention, when finalising the licence qualifications for pay television operators, to allow them to charge an annual rental for the paymeter; or whether one payment only will be required.
§ Mr. BevinsI do not intend to stipulate what rental arrangements should be adopted. The service is, after all, one on offer to subscribers. Applicants are proposing to try out various methods of charging, some of which might involve an installation fee or a weekly rental for the subscribers' equipment, or both.
§ Mr. Masonasked the Postmaster-General whether he will consider restricting pay television operators to separate regions, thereby preventing a national consortium from developing.
§ Mr. BevinsI envisage that each company will be authorised to operate in one or more separate localities; it may
104Weach month of 1963 to date; and what were the comparable figures for 1962.
§ Mr. BraineThe figures are as follows:
be necessary in order to get an appropriate cross-section of the country in the experiment to stipulate that companies operating in London must also operate in another part of the country. I have made it clear in the general requirements that operators must be independent of each other, although this does not preclude the sharing of programmes.
§ Mr. Masonasked the Postmaster-General if he will stipulate in his final licence qualifications for pay television operators that a local, as distinct from a national, sporting event will not be permitted when full sporting programmes are being shown on Independent Television Authority and British Broadcasting Corporation.
§ Mr. BevinsI see no reason for denying viewers the widest possible choice of programmes, or for preventing local sporting events widening their audience if they can do so.