Funeral company offers Pay-per-view burial service

A British crematorium will offer a new “pay-per-view funerals” service for the friends and families of the dead who are unable to attend the service, so they can watch it remotely from their computer screen.

Southampton crematorium in UK owned by the local city council will begin this service from today for a small fee of £75 ($150) per family.

The critics ridicule this service and say the web casting of solemn ceremonies is macabre.

The crematorium manager's, Trevor Mathieson, however defended their service and told Guardian newspaper:

It's not as if we're Sky and broadcasting Premier League football. We're not putting the services on to the internet for anyone to watch. Security is very important. It's all about offering a better service to people who are bereaved."

He said a digital camera will be placed discreetly in a corner and capture the ceremony. Whoever wants to watch this service will pay the fee and will be provided a username and password to watch the online transmission.

The company will offer a DVD of the funerals also for £50 ($100) and audio recordings for £25 ($50).

Mathieson added:

It's not everyone's cup of tea…Some people will think it's not the done thing. But we live in a world where family members live all over the place. A lot of people cannot make it to a crematorium."

Not everyone endorses this service in local Southampton.

The Rev. Gary Philbrick, area dean for Southampton, said there are some good things in it but he has some reservations and doesn’t like the idea of being filmed during a funeral.

Some accused the Southampton city council for trying to make it a profit out of it, while the city council said it will just make break even. Mathieson said they are not making blockbusters in crematorium.

Henry Powell and Sons, which has done this service before, said they had organized some funerals on a trial basis and showed them on webcast in Canada and Australia and received positive responses.

John Childs lost his wife recently and he took part in one of those trials, was very happy with it. His son had to miss the funeral because of his work and had to return to Australia. His son watched the webcasting from Australia. Childs said he was happy with this service.

Already many parts of funeral are run like a business, so this possibly will be another feature added to it either now or in the near future. Watching it in person will be much better and more respectful to the dead than watching it on the internet in my opinion, it will be like watching a funeral in the movies tough to relate to it.

Do you support this broadcasting funeral service over the net?