Phil Isaacs, a film distribution and theater chain executive who was also a pioneer in the development of pay television, died December 2, 2011. in Woodland Hills, California. He was 89.
According to news reports, he died of natural causes.
As vice president of International Telemeter Corp., a company operated by Paramount Pictures to perfect a pay TV system, Isaacs played a key role in 1960 in setting up and managing a closed-circuit experimental pay TV station in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke. He was also involved in finding programming for the service, signing up the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League, the away games of the Toronto Maple Leaf hockey team, and Chicago's Second City; films came from Paramount.
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