The late Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America from 1966 until 2004, felt strongly about the impact of new technology on the film industry.

In 1974 he told Congress that cable TV was “a huge parasite in the marketplace”. In 1982 he told the House of Representatives “the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone”. His opinion of the internet is perhaps better left unprinted.