“Taranaki Central Press" FRIDAY, JANUARY 22, 1937. BROADCASTING FINANCE.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 340, 22 January 1937, Page 4

“Taranaki Central Press" FRIDAY, JANUARY 22, 1937. BROADCASTING FINANCE.

One of the new features of the 1937 issue of the New Zealand Official Year Book is a chapter on the history, organisation, and finances of broadcasting in the Dominion. Perhaps the most interesting part of the chapter is the brief section at the end dealing with the finances of the New Zealand Broadcasting ' Board from 1932, the year of inception, to 1935. And this section is more interesting for what it does not say than for what it does say. The total expenditure of the board, which in 1935 amounted to £ 194,632, is classified under such vague and uninformative headings as “programmes," “general expenses,” and “administration salaries and expenses.” Nor will an enquiring payer of license fees be able to supplement this meagre information by turning to the board’s reports, for they are as reticent as the Year Book. It should be added that the payer of license fees has some excuse for feeling curious. In four years, during which there was heavy capital expenditure, the board put by the very substantial sum of £187,000 to reserves this in addition to more than £Bl,OOO to cover depreciation of assets. In 1935 the amount appropriated to reserves was £750,000, compared with an expenditure of £61,597 on programmes; and in the same year contributions to the reserves and depreciation accounts absorbed about half the total revenue. Even allowing that rapid technical change must be expected and provided for, it would seem that in broadcasting the present generation is assuming more than its fair share of the burden of the future. In any case, now that broadcasting is administered by a department of State, the future of these reserves can be predicted with confidence. They will be raided by the first Government that gets into financial difficulties. Next year the Year Book should have a still more interesting story to tell if the full details of the year’s activities are given. For the National Commercial Broadcasting Service will have a year’s operations to report and its financial aspects should make pretty reading. What will be the fate of the revenue accruing to that branch of the whole service? Of course its Director, Mr. C. G. Scrimgeour, will get a large part by virtue of his ridiculous contract with the Government, but the profits could and should be enormous. Will the listener pay less next year? That is the question, and an interesting one, too.