Phonevision

New Zealand Listener, Volume 23, Issue 583, 25 August 1950, Page 20

Phonevision

SURVEY of 3000 television set owners revealed that whereas 32 per cent would .be willing to pay the average box-office price to see television on a theatre screen, 50 per cent were willing to pay a dollar to see a first-run movie on their home sets. On this basis one company has decided to make a three-month test of phonevision. All that the new system involves is a telephone call by the set owner, ordering a film for the evening, on his own set, .at a dollar a time. This is made possible by an inexpensive gadget attached to his set. The fee is charged to the monthly phone bill, and divided among the producer of the film, the television

station, and the telephone company. The scheme is also expected to make it profitable for Hollywood to turn out high quality films solely for television, and is thought to have far bigger potential profits than the country’s 20,000 picture theatres. In an editorial in Life magazine, it was said that if the phonevision experiment succeeds, E. F. McDonald, Jnr., its sponsor, will go down in history as a great social innovator: "His system promises to complete the process, already stimulated by television itself, whereby the rolling, wandering American of the motor age is being returned to the home. With a new movie every night to keep the children from their books and piano lessons, it may not be the kind of home a reflective parent wants to live in. Nevertheless, a new age may be just now a-borning. Sociologists take note." In the meantime, and this is what the average filmgoer is presumably interested in, how will films themselves be affected? Goldwyn thinks television’s competition will force Hollywood to produce better pictures. "It is a certainty that people will be unwilling to pay to see poor pictures when they can stay at home and see something which is, at least, no worse," Pictures designed specifically for television won’t differ basic-

ally, he thinks, from the present ones, but there will be variations in techniques. There will be a greater emphasis on story value, and as these films will probably not run over an hour, there will inevitably be an eccelerated tempo. And with one segment of the movie industry producing for the theatres and another for the homes, "the weak sisters in our ranks will fall by the wayside." "T am cofivinced," he concludes, "that television will cause Hollywood to achieve new heights." And so, the battle joined, the matter rests for the present.