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I haven't seen the programs, so how can I judge whether they are going to have an adverse effect on my (or anybody else's) morals. How can I tell if they are degrading to women, etc., etc. A lot of people have jumped on this band-wagon, and I'll bet that most of them haven't seen the programs, --either. Co RE But I will say this. First Choice (whether by acci- dent or design) has pulled off a major public relations coup. All the nattering and gnashing of teeth in the press about the Playboy programs has virtually guaranteed that customers will be lining up to plunk down $15 per month for that pay channel. And the people who run First Choice must be chuckling every time someone gets us to condemn their decision to air this kind of stuff. Frankly, I think Pay-TV is going to be a giant hit with Canadians when it comes on air next month. Never mind this stuff about Playboy. I strongly believe televi- sion viewers in this country are fed up with the junk they've been getting for years over the regular networks and channels. As a television viewer, I enjoy three things on the tube; sports events, the news and movies. The rest you can take and throw in the garbage. In this part of the country, TV sports fans get a steady diet of Maple Leaf hockey, easily the worst team to watch in the league. Give me something else. It makes me see red when the Leafs and Whalers are on the tube and two top teams are ignered by the network. Same goes for the Blue Jays in baseball. And as for the CFL, a full 50 per cent of the games played in the East are blacked out in the Toronto area. You call that effective programming? The movies that are shown on the tube these days are atrocious. Most of them are so heavily edited and se cluttered with commercial breaks, it is impossible te enjoy them. And the quality of the films showing up on the tube aren't werth the price of the celluloid. How many times can a station carry 'Beach Boy Summer" with Annette Funiceflo, or those idiotic John Wayne dusters? The networks are worried about Pay-TV, and well they should be. They have been dishing up the worst kind of programming, mevies and sports tions for A years, giving viewers no choice on what they see, and now they are going to take a kicking from Pay-TV. I say it looks good on them. What bothers me most about our regular program- ming on TV these days is its predictability and the way it insults the intelligence of anyone foolish enough to turn the set on. Why one channel these days is running a dou- ble bill of Hawaii Five-O repeats every night of the week at midnight. Another channel runs a dreadful thing call- ed Caged Women. How dumb do they think viewers are? Do you want to know why people are going to stand in line to sign up for the Pay-TV channels? Because it will give them a choice: variety, un-edited and un- censored movies, sporting attractions which have meaning rather than two teams fighting for last place, in short, a whole new style. Last week, I did some research on a story about satellite dishes, those round things pointed skyward which can be seen on the roofs of apartment buildings and taverns, and even in the back-yards of some private homeowners. I predict that the dishes are going to be more and more popular once the legal question is sorted out. The price tag of $6000 is a little sticky for most people, true. But I was impressed by the variety of programs a dish can beam into the TV set. They pick up some 70 different channels offering everything from movies to news, weather, music, sports and so on. People want this kind of variety and they are ready to pay for it. People in southern Ontario are more fortunate than those in the central and northern parts of the province. At least here we get a wide choice of mediocre televi- sion stations. A lot of places get one or two channels, both serving up the same junk week in and week out. And what bothers me as well is that the federal government through the CRTC seems to think it owns the air waves and has the final say about what I can see on my TV set. All this nonsense about Canadian con- tent over the last few years has done precious little ex- cept serve up more and more . If television is to be successful it must devote the bulk of its programs to entertaining the viewer, not preaching or ramming culture down our throats. As 1 see it, this country is ripe for Pay-TV, whether the package has Playboy bunnies er net. Certainly, a lot of people are going to line for First Choice just to find out fer themselves what all the fuss is about, but most are going to end up taking all three of the pay channels. (Turn to page 6) Abs The Hospital Scugog Township council has thrown its support behind a planned expansion to Community Memorial Hospital with the decision to grant $160,000 in tax funds over the next three years. This was the amount requested by Hospital and Board officials at a meeting with council earlier this month. The total cost of the planned expansion is estimated at $750,000 with the work expected to start this spring and be completed at the end of the year. We are pleased the council took the decision to grant this money towards the hospital expansion. It is a wise use of tax-payers money. Obviously, an dctive and efficient hospital is a fundamental part of any com- munity, and just because money is tight for all levels of government these days does not mean that the need for hospital expansions has gone away. On the contrary. The Hospital Board has been stu- dying this expansion for several years and just why it is needed at this time is very well documented. The $160,000 which Scugog council granted towards this expansion makes up just 20 per cent of the $750,000 estimated cost. The rest of the funds will come from these sources: provincial government, $200,000; Hospital Foundation fund, $250,000; national-provincial foundations and major corporations, $75,000; local ser- vice clubs, organizations, businesses and industry, $75,000. This last figure of $75,000 means that many groups and organizations in Scugog Township will be asked to pledge money towards this needed hospital expansion, which in turn means they will be launching local fund- raising drives and activities. We wish the local fund-raisers well in their efforts and trust that the citizens of Scugog Township will sup- port them fully when the time comes. An efficient hospital providing the highest standards possible is everybody's business. We urge the communi- ty to get behind the fund-raising and help make this pro- ject work. Only In Canada Swiss financier Branco Weiss has put the hex on Canada as a place for international investors to do business. Weiss is the mutti-millionaire who helped bank-roll Len Rosenberg's purchase of Crown and Greymac Trust, which, by the way, were seized recently by the Ontario Government. Anyway, poor Mr. Weiss is now bad-mouthing Canada to anybody who will listen, saying this country is a terrible place to invest and that he is personally: advising his clients and cohorts to steer clear of this place. Bully for him. We can't help but wonder just where Mr. Weiss is now advising his clients to put their money? Italy, maybe, which has had more than 50 changes of government since the end of the war. How about France, which is almost as unstable. The Middle East might be nice, if you're in the bomb shelter business. How about South America which is on the verge of total bankruptcy? The truth of the matter is that Canada remains one of the few places left on this earth where an investor can place money with a degree of confidence, but one must play by the rules. Mr. Weiss is right of course when he says that the trust company-apartment sale fiasco "has created a mess." But it is hardly reason for investors to take their piggy-banks and run elsewhere. Hopefully, when the dust has settled, the Govern- ment will know just what the heck went wrong and the loop-holes can be plugged to prévent a similar 'mess' in the future. As for Mr. Weiss and his off-the-cuff comments about Canada. it is very easy to sit in a nice, comfor- table office in Zusich and pop off about this country, which has been pretty darn good to a let of foreign in- vestors over the past 100 years or so. A lot of money made in Canada is sitting snug in those vaults which run beneath the streets of Zurich, and no doubt some of it belongs to Mr. Weiss. ay SN ------