July 22, 1964 - After months of frustration, Subscription Television, Inc., California’s new pay-television system, has arranged to show its subscribers some fairly new American motion pictures.
The company announced today that it had signed a one-year “experimental and exploratory” agreement with United Artists Corporation involving eight motion pictures. The movies will be televised starting July 31.
Involved in the agreement are “Dr. No” (pictured), “The Great Escape,” “Irma La Douce,” “Lilies of the Field,” “Two for the Seesaw,” “A Child is Waiting,” “Toys in the Attic,” and “Love Is a Ball.”
Until now, subscription television’s efforts to obtain American movies had been rebuffed by distributors. Sylvester Weaver Jr., president of the company, had charged that major Hollywood distributors would not release new films to pay TV because of pressure from movie exhibitors. The exhibitors fear that pay TV will hurt their box-office receipts.
Subscription Television, by far the most important pay-TV venture to date, started operating in Los Angeles on July 17 and will start in San Francisco Aug. 14.
Under the agreement, movies will be made available to pay TV nine months after the end of their first-run release in the cities concerned. These movies will not be available on commercial television in Los Angeles or San Francisco this year.
Subscription Television plans to televise each movie twice in one evening and will repeat the performance every three months for a year. The films will not be cut or edited and will be shown without interruption.
Because of its inability to obtain American movies, the pay-TV system in Los Angeles has, until now, been showing old foreign art films that have not drawn many viewers. Those who watch the films are charged $1.
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