BAN ON AMERICAN SERIAL FEATURES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 29, 12 January 1940, Page 10

BAN ON AMERICAN SERIAL FEATURES

A Help Rather Than A Hindrance

comed as a means of helping one big industry 2 Australia, recent import restrictions are welto grow bigger. Here in New Zealand, radio features are mainly imported. Some locally produced plays, and a few features, are recorded in Government-owned studios attached to the National and Commercial stations. But the industry here has not been nourished on the market which Australian privately-controlled studios have found for their work, Opinions expressed in Australian radio journals arriving this month show that the import licencing regulations, introduced by the Commonwealth Goyernment since the war began, will ban all further

importations of American transcriptions for broadcasting, A Welcome Ban One station manager is reported as regretting the ban insofar as it will remove desirable competition. Otherwise, comment is wholly favourable, About six years ago Australian broadcasters decided that the air had room for more than just musical programmes and announcements. They looked about for new ideas, and found them in-the American recorded feature. The big American studios work on the principle that playing a record over their huge networks would be like asking listeners to kiss their sweethearts’ photos instead of the real thing; but there, especially in California, radio has built itself a big feature production business for the export market. This met the Australian demand, at first, and, as all listeners know who have laughed at Eb and Zeb, and the Japanese Houseboy, also made good use of a ready market in New Zealand. Home-Made Preferred But now Australia has at least six big recording studios, During the last twelve months a current

survey shows that Australian-produced features far exceeded the number of American productions on the air. At one station, it has been found that advertisers last year sponsored Australian productions in favour of American records in the ratio of 9 to 1, Although the official ABC concentrates on studio work, Australia is also served by commercial stations, privately-controlled, in numbers which far exceed the aerials at present available for the Government stations. These find it cheaper to use records instead of keeping all the time to flesh-and-blood artists, and the economical circulation of records among stations run in chains by one firm cuts down relaying costs, Serials Without An End Some stations have not been canning their drama fast enough, and are likely, if the ban is held down fast, to find themselves without the concluding instalments of some serials. Others, especially in South Australia, where they seem to have looked ahead, are carrying all the instalments they require to complete current items,

New Zealand, too, has turned away from concentration on the American production. More and more Australian radio features have been finding their way through the aerials of both the YA and ZB stations, Some of the titles are: The Woman in White, Westward Ho!, Greyburn of the Salween, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Fred and Maggie Everybody, Notable British Trials, Mittens, Inspector Scott of Scotland Yard, Famous Women, Knights of the Round Table, Every Walk of Life, David and Dawn, The Rich Uncle, Robinson Crusoe. Most of these come from the George Edwards Company, which rehacks old stories, peps up old

plots, turns literature into dialogue, and puts the result on discs at the big Columbia studios, Once, another company of artists worked along similar lines. Mr. and Mrs. Henry Howlett, who came to New Zealand last year and were described in The Listener as stars of various features well known over the New Zealand broadcast band, told of its dispersal and the growth of the George Edwards Company in the sunlight of Columbia’s rich smile. Import restrictions worry these people no more than a strike of oil would worry the Taranaki dairy farmer whose home paddock held the successful bore. The Craze For " Crazes " While they are no longer receiving records from America, Australian producers are accepting new crazes from overseas. "Bees" of all sorts have for some years been featured successfully by the BBC, which is not so austere as some would make it out who haven't heard the lighter side of its programmes, The "craze" idea spreads also from America. Musical auctions, spelling bees, crazy courts, intelligence tests, are all included in the list of " audience partici-

pation" items. But while the BBC, for instance, takes endless pains to work up relays and hook-ups for spelling bees between Leeds and Manchester, North of England and the South, one- regional station against another, in , Australia they have accepted the idea and turned it into records, The "bee" is organised, perhaps broadcast first of all as an authentic studio presentation, then circulated on discs among subsidiary stations. A good disc will travel well. If a song, or a play, or music, or a talk, or any other feature, can be caught while it’s hot, it can at least be kept warm for many more re-broadcasts afterwards. _ Sometimes a record may leave a distribution centre and not come back for a year. By carefully avoiding the danger of putting a date on their work, a radio commentator can, for instance, interview a sporting celebrity in such a way that his story of one football season can carry over for use in the season following, It’s cheap,