BEFORE OR AFTER?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 110, 1 August 1941, Page 12

BEFORE OR AFTER?

Sir.-I would like through your columns to offer a criticism of the method of announcing used by the NBS, I have no concern with the pronunciation of the announcers-so long as they are easily and clearly understood. But it seems to me that NBS announcing fails to serve its purpose. Announcements are made, surely, to satisfy the listener’s curiosity about the titles or composers of the items broadcast or about the artists who render them. If this is so, the announcement should follow the item-be broadcast after the item has already roused interest. What actually happens is that announcements precede items, in order that the listener may listen to a number which he thinks he will like. This conception of announcing is very imperfect, and needs to be discarded. In the first place, we generally forget the title of the number before our interest has been excited-than which nothing is more annoying. Again, the title is often misleading, and if it is not inspiring we turn the radio off, perhaps missing something worth while. Preceding announcements are not necessary at all-if the number is known to us, we can soon tell whether or not to switch the radio off; and if it is not known to us, we

can judge it far better by the music itself than by the title, or composer, or artist. I would like to suggest, then, that the NBS follow the example of the ABC, the BBC, and many other broadeasting organisations, by announcing musical items after they have been played.

THE DOODLEBUG

(Auckland).