Good Mourning TV!

LONDON - Pay-per-view funerals go live online in Britain on Tuesday, allowing mourners who cannot attend services in person to pay their last respects via the Internet. Despite criticism of the scheme as macabre, the company who launched the service, Wesley Music, is planning to offer it to crematoria across the country who will charge a one-off payment of around 75 pounds ($150) for access to a funeral webcast. Mourners use the password to access a live online broadcast of the funeral service captured by a small camera mounted in the chapel. David Powell, of funeral directors Henry Powell and Son in Southampton, southern England said he had already tested the service during three funerals. He insisted they remained private, intimate affairs despite being broadcast on the web. He said mourners as far away as Australia and Canada had already used the system.