The Open University of Great Britain provides home-based instruction via broadcasts and correspondence. Since technical arguments for the superiority of open-network, cable, or cassette television systems are inconclusive, the university has been forced to develop a decision-making model to determine which system is the most cost effective. For each system the following characteristics must be considered: 1) student characteristics; 2) instructional characteristics; 3) flexibility; 4) available technology; and 5) type of evaluation. These characteristics must be weighed against the costs of the required development, production, transmission, distribution, software, and hardware. The resulting ratio of bundles of characteristics to cost will enable the Open University to select the system which most effectively resolves the institution's video-distribution problems. (EMH)