BRITISH RELAYS STOPPED

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 15, 19 January 1933, Page 17

BRITISH RELAYS STOPPED

The Bioatleastiiig Board has wisely abandoned its robroadcasting of the Empire service, after persisting with it quite long enough to give most listeners far too much of it. One of the 8.8.C.'s -principles is that if a thing is riot good enough to put on the air it is not put on,'and-on that principle .no.nO;;. l st.the,..]3mpir,e:. J 4)rQgram9ie3 i -wa3 gootl enough to get a hearing except, on tho score of its liovclty. tho Christmas round-the-world greeting effort. The announcement has been made that the conditions may bo much better at another time of the year, and if so, the broadcasts will be resumed. It may be that New Zealand was worse served in regard to quality than other olaces, though that is far from certain. It is a fact that the service reaches us at a very unfortunate time—probably the least convenient that could be chosen. But the ■ leapt comprehensible feature of the service is the nature of the programmes. The Australian zone has plenty of broadcast music from its own stations, and whon one remembers the extrcmo importaneo which the 8.8.C. has always attached to fine musical quality, it is hard to understand why any attempt is made to provide musical items at all. That they could not be received in, this part of the world without ruinous distortion and interference went without saying. There is a case for transmitting good talks if they can be followed easily, but none whatever for sending out-music as an- entertainment. As a technical experiment on a grand scale the affair is. of course, magnificent, but the 8.8.C. engineers ought to have mercy on us poor Antipodeans and confine their experimenting to those enthusiasts who want to" listen.