This week, when the Independent Television Authority starts its broadcasts, an experiment will begin in harnessing advertisers’ money to this powerful new medium of information and entertainment. With the example before it of American commercial television, Parliament has hedged the new organisation around with rules and safeguards; these are the conditions on which it has accepted the experiment.
The new programmes will be watched with keen interest for fresh ideas and new uses of a medium which is still in its infancy. Already the good effects of competition are to be seen in the more lively and alert programmes of the BBC. But it would be unwise to judge the result of the experiment too early. At first the new service has everything to gain by giving no offence to those critics who fear that commercialism in this medium will lead to vulgarisation. The real test of the ITA will come as the pressure grows to subordinate other considerations to the necessity of providing large audiences for the advertiser, who will be paying this piper.
Key quote
“For those who still preserve an intelligent interest in drama, it will be a conversational necessity for many years to have seen Waiting for Godot.”
Observer theatre critic Kenneth Tynan at Peter Hall’s Criterion production of Samuel Beckett’s play.
Talking point
There is a growing concern in the medical profession at the steep rise in the number of actions for alleged negligence brought by patients against hospitals and doctors. One reason for the rise in the number of cases may be that patients nowadays are more inclined to bring actions, assuming that “the state will pay.”
The Observer’s legal correspondent asks “Is the law fair to doctors?”
