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Show Impossible ? Televised Basketball With the exception of Dr. Ernest Wilkinson and the final score, the most disturbing thing about Saturday's Satur-day's Utah-BYU basketball game was the halftime announcement an-nouncement : "Brigham Young University students will be able to view the U tah game on closed circuit television tele-vision direct from Salt Lake City." This statement, coupled with the disclosed fact that over 2,500 BYU students watched last Saturday's game ' via closed circuit television in an auditorium, has perplexed per-plexed and in some cases angered University of Utah students. Why has the University refused to implement closed circuit television to pi,e in important game sue has BYU and Utah State? Officials at the Park Building say that it is simply a matter of cost. Estimates have been taken as to the cost of such a program and it was decided that the use of TV could not pay its own basis. On the basis of cost, the administration did not want to tackle such a program. pro-gram. However, the Chronicle has contacted staff members of both the University Closed Circuit TV department, and KUED-TV and both agree that the program has good possibilities. At present, neither TV operation has the remote equipment to handle a closed circuit basketball game. Whenever KUED broadcasts programs such as commencement com-mencement or the state legislature, they must rent a truck and other equipment from a downtown commercial commer-cial operations. But renting is expensive and it is possible that the University might not always be able to borrow the necessary equipment. The members of the staff of both TV operations said they felt such a program could be handled by either department if the equipment were available, but there isn't enough money in the budget to purchase it at the present time. A large TV projection screen which would enable everyone seated in Pioneer Memorial Theater to see th game costs around $40,000. But it sems to us that a closed circuit program could quickly pay for itself. We're sure that most students would be willing to pay a small fee of somewhere between 50 cents and one dollar to see the BYU, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming Wyo-ming games later in the year. And a large number of alumni would certainly be willing to shuock out a -couple of bills for the chance to see a game live. It isn't too late to pipe in the BYU game (Feb. 20, Arizona (Feb. 28), New Mexico (March 5) and Wyoming Wyo-ming (March 6) games into the Union Ballroom, Kingsbury Kings-bury Hall or some other suitable building. If BYU, with an enrollment of 16,453 and a field-house field-house capacity of 10,000, can do it; the University, with a 12,506 enrollment and a fieldhouse capacity of 6,000, certainly should be able to do the same. |