More Telly For Britons, but Fewer Are Tuning In

When there were just four TV channels in Britain, watching “telly” was the country’s favorite pastime, with viewers boasting that British programs were the best in the world.

Now that government deregulation is bringing a smorgasbord of conventional and satellite TV channels to British homes, studies show that audiences have dropped by 10%.

It’s a paradox that is troubling an industry in upheaval, the latest target of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s selloff of state-owned or regulated enterprises.

Until last year when publisher Rupert Murdoch introduced satellite TV to Britain, television was neatly carved among four networks: two run by the state-funded British Broadcasting Corp. and two by private companies.

Now, legislation before Commons calls for auctioning off all the commercial TV franchises and creating a fifth land-based TV channel.

It is the most radical overhaul since commercial networks were first allowed to compete with the venerable BBC in 1955.

A private consortium, meanwhile, is about to launch Britain’s second satellite TV network, British Satellite Broadcasting, to compete with Murdoch’s money-losing Sky Television.

Britons still watch an average of about 25 1/2 hours of weekly TV, but that’s a 10% drop from five years ago, despite the arrival of overnight TV in 1987 and then Sky.

Barry Cox, director of London Weekend Television, said some of the drop “is attributable to video, but the same period saw a considerable increase in alternative leisure activities--taking two or more holidays, eating out.”

Bernard Bennett, LWT’s controller of research, said that “the existing cake will have to be carved up in a larger number of portions” to accommodate the new channels.

First on the air will be British Satellite Broadcasting, the international consortium awarded the government franchise to use the five satellite channels allocated to Britain under international treaty.

The $2-billion consortium is the second-largest private-sector investment project in Britain after Eurotunnel, the tunnel under the English Channel between England and France.