ADVERTISING BY RADIO

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21412, 2 March 1935, Page 7

ADVERTISING BY RADIO

TO THE EUITOK OF THE I'IIKSS. Sir,—Let it be stated at once that I would object strongly to advertising over the air. However, one must be reasonable. I am unable to detect any ethical difference between advertising by means of radio and advertising by means of the newspaper; they are both extremely objectionable. The point which seems to distress most people who are sufficiently intelligent to have any opinion at all on the matter is "the possibility of having shouted in their ears, at the close of a line musical programme, an advertisement touting the quality of such-and-such pills, or So-and-So's insect powders." Yet we do not seem to mind if these repulsive announcements are inextricably mixed up with the reading matter in our newspapers. Is it to be inferred that our eyes are less sensitive to these things than our ears, or have we simply become used

to it from lack of alternative? Admittedly the effect of advertising is not so distressing in the case of newspapers, where the literary and intellectual content of many advertisements is often greater than that of the other material published; whereas, in the case of broadcasting the contrast between the good music, which the authorities sometimes provide, and advertising would be so sharp as to cause pain to the most hardened product of modern civilisation. But this does not constitute an argument against advertising so much as against newspapers. A sound reason why advertising should be considered quite all right in the newspapers and yet not permitted over the air has yet to be advanced.—Yours, etc., ADVERTISING AGENT. March 1, 1935.