TNAG-0086-FCO40-122-Copyright-legislation-1968 — Page 28

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As this is the sole and complete function of the relay

operator it follows that he is no more concerned with the programmes

to be received by the public than the person who provides individual

aerials for each home or the person who provides the receiving sets.

The question of the relay operator improperly and unfairly exploiting

a broadcaster's property in the wireless programmes, therefore, simply

does not arise. Indeed as the relay operator often provides

facilities for improved reception, or even facilities for reception

which may be otherwise impossible he is, in fact, serving the interests

of the wireless broadcasting station by providing the broadcaster with a

wider audience for his broadcasts than he otherwise might have had.

9. These principles can, perhaps, best be illustrated by

reference to the English company which is the largest relay operator in

the world,namely Rediffusion Limited. Rediffusion Limited has been in

operation in the United Kingdom for some 38 years and serves some seven

hundred thousand relay subscribers. It relays, mainly, the programmes

of the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. So far from being opposed by the

broadcasters, Rediffusion Limited and other relay companies are regarded

by them as their natural allies in that the relay operators facilitate

the best and widest possible reception of the broadcasters' programmes.

10.

Rediffusion Limited also owns a number of subsidiary

companies which carry on relay operations outside the United Kingdom,

namely in Ceylon, Nigeria, Malta, Trinidad, Jamaica, Canada and Hong Kong.

The Canadian operation may be cited as an example of the use of relay as

an alternative form of reception in its classic form. In three cities

in the Province of Quebec subscribers to the relay service are enabled

to view seven or eight television programmes where, owing to the nature

of the terrain, most people are only able to receive one programme by.

the use of individual roof top aerials.

...

The Rediffusion Group also operates wireless broadcasting

stations in various territories. In Malta, Trinidad and Jamaica it

operates wireless stations as well as relay services.

Clearly there

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