The Ear Behind The Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 212, 16 July 1943, Page 9

The Ear Behind The Microphone

\ | ANY people would probably envy Mrs. F. A. Anderson. But others in the know might be more inclined to wonder that she keeps her sanity. Day in and day out she sits in her office listening to radio serials and feature programmes. And she cannot switch them off when she wants to. For Mrs, Anderson is doing a job that is essential to the Commercial Broadcasting Service and one that until a year ago was done by a man, "My job is to listen to all features before they are put over the air from the CBS," she told The Listener. "Each one has to be timed exactly. I have to listen carefully for anything unsuitable, and make notes of anything needing cutting or alteration. There is no chance of 40 winks on the job, either, because I have to hear every serial story and write a resumé of it. This is done partly in order that the sponsors may know what the serials are about, but also comes in useful if, for instance, a disc gets broken. You can’t just hop a disc. You might find that the heroine has disappeared, or that the villain had committed suicide. But if I know just what

was on the disc, I can supply a synopsis and thus bridge the gap." "Don’t you find that your thoughts wander, especially if you’ve got no real interest in what you are listening to?" ‘No, I find that listening just becomes a habit. At first it was hard to concentrate, but I soon found that if I let my mind wander, I wasted time and had to play the record over again. That soon cured me."

"Who suggests the presentation selects the music and so on?" "I. do that, too, and there is a lot of work in it. Sometimes it takes me a long time to find the tune that I think is just right for a serial." "And after the war?" "I will be very glad when I can get back to a life where you need turn on the radio only when you actually want to listen."