CONCERT BROADCASTS

Evening Post, Issue 37, 12 August 1936, Page 8

CONCERT BROADCASTS

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—While I am naturally hesitant to cross pens with a letter writer of such infinite variety as Mr. L. D. Austin, I feel compelled to comment on his rather erratic argument in favour of the public appearances of artists engaged to broadcast in New Zealand. I take it that in his letter, which drew Mr. Austin into this controversy, | "Broadcast" was finding fault, not I with the actual concerts by the radio artists, but with the system under which these concerts were1 conducted. I for one cannot agree that it is right for artists to be brought to the Dominion for, the express purpose of broadcasting and then used by the Broadcasting Board itself as direct opposition to those who trade legitimately in the entertainment field and pay huge rates, taxes; wages, etc., for that purpose. The standard of the concerts given in the past was high, but the prices charged ridiculously low, particularly in view of the calibre of the performers and the number of them appearing at each performance. '

Mr. Austin contends that we have no impresarios with the necessary capital to finance world celebrities. As a matter of fact, we have, in Australia and New Zealand, entrepreneurs perfectly capable of bringing round world celebrities, but who have been forced to refrain from doing so for the -very simple reason that .they were practically ruined by sheer lack of public support. ■

No one has suggested' that the radio will ever displace what Mr. Austin is pleased to call "flesh and blood" performances, and no one wants to deprive artists of those "frenzied plaudits" that come to them—occasionally, at any rate—at public performances. But I do not think it is much of a tribute to the imagination of artists in general when Mr. Austin suggests that they find the atmosphere of broadcasting studios "dull and uninspiring." It seems reasonable to suppose'that the knowledge that he or she was performing to an audience throughout the length and breadth of a country should be some slight inspiration to even the most untemperamental artist. In any case, I can think of nothing more dull and uninspiring than the average Wellington audience, particularly when it is herded into the equally dull and uninspiring Town Hall.

Is not Mr. Austin incorrect when he suggests that, from a business standpoint, the radio artists should broadcast publicly in order that the enormous lees they receive should be met partly by receipts from concerts? I may have been misled by advertisements, but with a large section of the community. I have been under the 'impression that with the exception of I running expenses, the proceeds of the concerts arranged by the Broadcasting | Board have been given to charity. If this is so, these "enormous fees" (over and above those paid for the artists' broadcasting engagements) are paid, presumably, from the fees obtained from listeners in all parts of the country. That seems to me to be an argument in favour of, and not against, confining to their own sphere performers engaged for broadcasting. It is,, of course, absurd for. Mr. Austin to instance JDr. Malcolm Sargent in this argument. It might apply to conductors if television were in vogue, but apart altogether from that, Dr. Malcolm Sargent had other express engagements outside those by the Broadcasting Board, and, in any case, he cannot be classed with those ordinary performers who, having been brought into the country ostensibly to improve the standard of radio concerts, have been banded together to give public concerts at prices that would send the legitimate entrepreneurs bankrupt, and they are, at the same time, a drain on the licence fees of the Dominion. I agree with "Broadcast" that the Labour Government should take the necessary action to confine the services of overseas artists to the broadcasting sphere, which is at present in'such a hopeless state.-—I am, etc., A.R.M.