WHERE NEWS RULES THE NETWORKS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 113, 22 August 1941, Page 11

WHERE NEWS RULES THE NETWORKS

B. T. Sheil On Radio In The U.S.

radio features by the major networks of the United States but, despite that, the sessions which get by far the greatest audiences are those which give the news, said B. T. Sheil, deputy-controller of the NCBS, when he was interviewed by The Listener last week on his arrival in Auckland by Clipper from a business trip to North America. This pre-occupation with world events, he explained, is, of course, largely a development of the war period. The major A fantastic sums are spent on

networks naturally have their own news-services and highly-paid commentators, but even the smallest stations, out "in the sticks," have a ticker-tape news-service and with a _ reasonably powerful set one can get news-bulletins at almost every moment of the day. In most centres, the average set is in easy range of six or seven stations, Mr. Sheil’s trip was made in connection with the wartime policy of the CBS to produce, as far as possible, its own features, and during his stay overseas he visited hundreds of radio —

stations in the Western states and in Canada, gathering production information likely to be of value in the furtherance of that policy. While it was not possible to draw comparisons between conditions on the big networks and | those in New Zealand, he was encouraged to find that in organisations comparable with the New Zealand services in size, the latter generally showed up to good advantage. In particular, he found that in women’s sessions New Zealand led both in the volume of revenue and in the matter of organisation. No Maori Music While in Canada, Mr. Sheil attended the annual conference of the Western Association of Broadcasters, held in British Columbia and addressed the delegates on radio in the Antipodes. There, he was surprised to learn that little or nothing was known on the Pacific coast about Maori music, but that flaw in Pacific cultural relations he undertook to correct as quickly as possible. He also found that radio executives everywhere were interested in the way in which New Zealand puts her Parliament on the air. There appeared, he said, to be nothing comparable with that development in radio anywhere in the United States or Canada. The nearest approach to it that he experienced was the nation-wide broadcast made recently when President Roosevelt made a momentous speech to Congress. On that occasion a recording (or " transcription," as American broadcasters call it) of the President’s speech was made in advance and at the precise moment at which Mr. Roosevelt began his speech in Congress the transcription was put on the air. Recorded Talks Favoured Touching on technical developments in the United States, Mr. Sheil mentioned that there was a definite trend at present toward increasing use of such "transcriptions" rather than direct broadcasts. As an example of this he cited President Roosevelt’s "fireside talks." These were now all recorded in advance,

Touching briefly on the attitude of the average United States citizen to Britain and the war, Mr. Sheil said that no-one could visit the United States at present without feeling encouraged. Judging by those he met and the opinions he heard expressed, at least 80 per cent, of Americans were wholeheartedly behind Britain and the other democracies.

The most heartening and impressive mental picture which he brought back with him was of what he saw outside the great Boeing aeroplane woiks at Seattle. There he watched trafic officials divert all vehicles from a fourtrack road to enable a single shift of men to come off duty at four in the afternoon, They swarmed out in thuusands.