"TRYING TO CATER FOR EVERYONE"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 272, 8 September 1944, Page 14

"TRYING TO CATER FOR EVERYONE"

A New Zealander Learns About The BBC

IDELIGHTS on the BBC and its policy, as they were revealed to a young New Zealand airman in England, are given in this article, written for "The Listener"

by

SERGEANT

REECE SMITH

who went to Great Britain early this year.

OMING up on the inside of The Times as the mostquoted British opinion is the BBC, empty of avowed politics, and full of news which has seldom been questioned on point of fact. However, the criticism spared the news section of the BBC has been rapidly transferred to another front, the entertainment section. The critics had been firing ranging shots on this sector since the Corporation was first formed, but their barrage really went down at the beginning of the war, when private transmitters were closed down for security reasons, and the British public was left to the mercies of the BBC. Some of the well-concentrated salvoes have been heard in New Zealand. The loudest of these, which was given consideration in The Listener at the time,

proclaimed the setting up of a committee for the banishment of "slush" from England’s well-bred air, "slush" being taken to include such request-session princes as Bing Crosby and Glen Miller. The trend of criticism implied that the BBC’s head was buried in the sands of Coates, Ketelbey and other respectable composers whose fan-mail causes no postman any bother. Belief in these cables caused me to land in England drearily resigned to undergoing "musical improvement." Perhaps a_ sparkling Victor Sylvester session as a Saturday night treat. "Sublimely Self-Assured Institution" A BBC man with whom I recently travelled down in the train from Carlisle to Preston straightened out several of these points for me, uncovered some more. First, regarding much of the criticism in the newspapers, he said the papers were rather envious of the BBC, which, by virtue of its multiple bulletins, frequently beats them on news releases. This envy is expressed in periodical railing at the BBC’s stodginess, This contrasts with New Zealand, where the stodgier medium, the papers, do their best to ignore the radio world completely, as by reporting ministerial broadcasts as "irf an address last night." By making no reply to the papers, the BBC emerges with dignity but gives no justification of. its policy. In this respect it appears as a sublimely selfassufed institution, but it doeg try to keep track of what the public wants. The qualifications for directorship are on the subtle side, judging by the lightness with which BBC directors pop off to take executive positions with British Overseas Airways (Lord Reith) and the Mine Owners’ Association (Robert Foot), but there is a department at the BBC devoted to sounding current tastes, so their man told me. And his further point was the ease of catering for the majority, but the difficulty of catering for everyone. The BBC, he said, sets itself the difficult task. Nor is it possible to cater for tastes in zoned time, as it is in New Zealand: general cheer till 9.0 a.m., the working housewife till mid-day, then more general cheer, the time-wealthy classicist in the early afternoon, followed by more housewife, and only the evening devoted to mixing it for everyone. Widespread shift work in Britain leads to someone of every taste being a listener at every stage of the day, and this does not simplify the programme department’s task, The first move in catering for everyone has been to divide the transmission into two, the General Forces Service and the Home Service. The Home Service occasionally evinces a tende to talks on the first cuckoo of spring, how to bath the baby, Albania in 1924, and so on, and also for the heavy dinner music which passes itself off as "classical." Generally it may be compared to the restrained, informative tone of New \ (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) Zealand’s NBS, and its excursions towards more abandoned music and "soap operas" are held under tight rein. For this reason, no camp or station I have yet inhabited in England has ever been caught in the act of listening to the Home Service. The "Bright" Programmes The General Forces Service is meant to be the bright programme. It carries the personalities, as do American programmes, but With the difference that, while the multitude of Kraft Cheeseeaters pay for Bing Crosby’s programme, the BBC has to-pay its stars from the shallower coffers of the Treasury. Because of this, it cannot afford frequent appearances by stars whose charges: are based on their £800 a week West End stage earnings. Flanagan and Allen are cases in point. This is not to say there are no regular radio programmes by stage stars. Tommy Handley’s radio reputation is as good as his stage one, and his show has been running a long time for a non-sponsored programme. And English dance bands record half-hour sessions for broadcasting, the best, Geraldo, being as good as many American outfits appearing on "Spotlight Band.’ BBC request sessions on the General Forces programme are popular, just as they are in New Zealand. Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore, "Chu Chu Baby" and "My Heart Tells Me" are sitting firmly on top, and the "slush" committee, which is reported to have condemned "Paper Doll’ as too unmanly for the BBC till it hit the top anyway, must take a nap as the request programmes are being made up. The American Trend Some of the sessions are requests from the boys overseas for themselves, some are requests by people at home for those boys. And as with these sessions, the whole trend of the General Forces programme is towards the American fashion in music, though the programmes are blessedly shorn of the applause ration which American audiences are so liberally allowed. This trend nurtures the conviction that the Americans have popular radio entertainment better taped than has the BBC. In fact, that she has the bulk of the Englishspeaking world’s entertainment talent. Songs sung around the barracks in England, New Zealand, and America are for much the greater part American-com-posed, In this connection, the BBC man said: At the outbreak swing had not reached England to any extent. There was no demand for it, and the BBC did not play it. But five years have passed since then, and American stylings have by now won a considerable following in Britain, and the BBC will take full regard of them after the war. So you see the entertainment section of the BBC is not so reactionary as cabled comments over the past few years have led New Zealanders to believe. It sets out with the admirable object of catering for everyone, and presents some quite bright programmes. : Every hut in permanent camps in England has a radio, presented by Lord Nuffield. The chances are as certain as Kindergarten in a weight-for-age race that if you walk into a hut full of New Zealand airmen the radio will be tuned in to the American station in England.