Movies in the Living Room

Hollywood's moviemakers, who are beginning to admit out loud that they cannot lick TV, took another step toward joining it. Winding up a meeting of the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers, President (and onetime Georgia Governor) Ellis Arnall announced that the members had voted a unanimous endorsement of subscription television.* "Essentially, television is motion pictures," said Arnall bravely. "There is no real difference. And if subscription television is the way to make them work together, I am for it."

So far, no big studios have yet decided to start manufacturing films for television audiences. But it looks as though set owners may yet be able to see the products of such big-time independents as Sam Goldwyn and Walt Disney without leaving the living room.

*All subscription TV systems work on the same principle: broadcasting shows which appear as bewildering blurs on the screen unless the subscriber pays to have the image unscrambled. The three main methods: 1) Zenith's Phonevision, . .which pipes the unscrambling signal over telephone lines, with the charges going on monthly telephone bills (TIME, June 4); 2) Skiatron, which equips TV receivers with built-in "decoders" that are operated by special plastic cards; 3) Telemeter, which attaches a coin-in-the-slot gadget directly to the set.

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