Big Media's anti-pay-TV campaign from 1967

The proponents of the loathsome Broadcast Flag, which seeks to limit your ability to freely manipulate, archive and move the TV shows you record, weren't always opponents of freedom and television. Back in 1967, the TV broadcasters and the movie studios ran a propaganda campaign to defeat the early Pay TV systems. Here's a wonderful old video clip from that era, a bumper that was shown before movies urging Californians to sign a petition against Pay TV.

In 1967, when one of the first pay TV services was preparing to launch in California, Hollywood and the networks helped defeat the service because they didn't want the competition. Theater owners organized a KEEP TV FREE campaign, with PSAs like this one running in movie houses before feature films.

Though this particular campaign was limited to California, the advertising industry and television networks have long argued a similar case. When Vance Packard, Ralph Nader, Peggy Charren, and other critics attacked advertising in the 1950s, 1970s, and 1980s (respectively), defenders of industry often cited a common refrain: "advertising provides free news and entertainment."

In other words, the major networks (in conjunction with the ad industry) have promoted the idea that television is free for decades. Now that viewers have taken their word for it by recording and sharing TV shows freely, the industry only has itself to blame.

Link

(Thanks, Carrie!)