PAY-AS-YOU-SEE TV.: Fun for the Viewer, Hope for the Industry

AT the very beginning of its color revolution, the television industry faces a new one—the possibility of pay-as-you-see TV. Three companies are ready with systems to enable telecasters to charge home viewers for certain shows. Thus, the Federal Communications Commission will soon have to answer the same kind of question it faced in color: Should pay-as-you-see be made available, and if so, what system should be chosen?

From the standpoint of the televiewer, pay-as-you-see promises great benefits: better shows and no commercials. Broadway shows and top sporting events now kept off the air because of the promoters' fear of falling gate receipts would be telecast. First-run movies would supplement the antiques now filling the screens; opera and ballet, which seldom come into the living room, could be telecast. Pay-as-you-see could put the Metropolitan Opera on a solid financial basis. And pay-as-you-see, instead of keeping audiences away from such events, might stimulate as much interest in them as radio did in symphony orchestras.

All three pay-as-you-see systems use the basic technique of broadcasting "scrambled" signals that form a picture only when unscrambled by a special device attached to the receiving set. Telemeter Corp., 54% owned by Paramount Pictures, uses a coin box hitched to the TV set, which unscrambles the picture when the proper amount of money is inserted. Zenith Radio Corp.'s Phonevision, now awaiting an FCC decision, originally used a special unscrambling signal transmitted to the set via a telephone-line attachment, and depended on the phone company to do the billing. But now Phonevision has several alternate methods. One uses the coin box; another uses a gadget which would unscramble the TV picture when set to the right combination. Cards with the combination would be sold for each show by dealers or vending machines. Skia-tron Electronics & Television Corp.'s Subscriber-Vision works by means of punched decoding cards inserted into a device on the set.

Economically, there is no doubt that pay-as-you-see would be a boon to the cost-pinched TV industry. Of the 83 TV stations which have gone into operation since April 1952, an estimated 30% will run in the red this year; last year, no fewer than 38 construction permits for new stations were surrendered because of the bleak profit outlook. Black & white broadcasting has become so expensive that only a few of the biggest sponsors can afford more than a half-hour show; color TV will increase the costs. When the cost of Milton Berle's Tuesday night hour soared from $17,500 to $150,000 a week, it became too much even for Texaco (Buick has since taken over).