“Taranaki Central Press” TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 1937. RADIO LICENSE FEES.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 390, 23 March 1937, Page 4

“Taranaki Central Press” TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 1937. RADIO LICENSE FEES.

The Prime Minister’s statement that the radio-receiving license fee will remain at 25/- for the ensuing year will surprise and displease listeners. Ihe cost of licenses was reduced two years ago from 30/- to 25/-, the greater part of the reduction being accounted for by the Government's release from an obligation to pay for certain patent rights. Since then, although the Government has made no little parade of its interest in the service and of its desire to pursue the listeners’ advantage, nothing has been done to reduce any further the heaviest charge in the world; and it was not an unreasonable expectation that the beginning of a new license year would be the time chosen. The finances of the service provided very strong grounds for such an expectation.

Although the figures made available in the annual reports and in the Official Year Book are as broadly generalised as those of the most reticent company balance-sheet, they do disclose such facts as the following: “Appropriation to reserves, etc.,” have been £14,000, £38,000, £60,000, and £75,000 in the four years from 1932 to 1935, and depreciation of assets has been covered, in the same period, by a further total appropriation of £81,296, making a grand total of more than a quarter of a million pounds. During the same four years, programmes the listeners’ first and last care have absorbed a very much smaller sum: about £lBO,OOO.

Now, when the fullest consideration is given to the necessity for present finance, especially in view of the likelihood of rapid and extensive technical changes, involving expense, it appears that listeners are being unfairly and stingily treated. Even if special consideration is given to the Government’s lately announced polic y, with its indications of heavy establishment charges and increased running expenses under several heads, no less is to be said; for it will certainly be unjust if these establishment charges are to be met out of accumulated reserves. There is no reason why the advantages of 1940 should be presented to it out of savings trimmed from the licensees of 1935.

The plain fact is that license-holders have not been receiving, and are not receiving, anything like full value for their money, much less than a third of which has been spent on programmes, much more laid by for purposes very vaguely defined or not defined at all.

The service could afford an immediate reduction, and no slight one, in the license fee, without jeopardising the future. To withhold it, with the promise of “establishing the service first and rerlucing the rates afterwards,’’ as Mr. Savage says, is to tell the 220,000 present licensees that they must continue to be overcharged in order to share with others, who are now paying nothing. the future advantage of a better service at a fair price. It is rubbing in balm with sandpaper.