AUSTRALIAN WILL CONTROL BBC'S OVERSEAS SERVICES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 358, 3 May 1946, Page 21

AUSTRALIAN WILL CONTROL BBC'S OVERSEAS SERVICES

Two-way Traffic in Radio Personalities FORM of personal two-way traffic in radio seems to have begun between England and Australia. Two months ago it was announced that Derek Prentice, of the BBC, had been appointed to the Australian commercial station 3DB Melbourne. Now Robert McCall, assistant general manager of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, will leave in June to be controller of overseas services for the BBC. Prentice has taken to Melbourne plans for using musical sound effects such as those heard in recent BBC broadcasts for The Harbour Called Mulberry and Radar. His technique is to follow the lines developed by the American radio producer Norman Corwin, and by leading British producers, including Cecil McGivern. McCall has had an outstanding career as a broadcaster, musician, journalist, administrator and public relations officer. This will be his second trip to the BBC in six years. In 194Q he was lent by the ABC to the BBC to organise the latter’s Pacific services. His transfer was part of the BBC’s scheme to invite representatives from the colonies and Dominions to develop the Empire service under Empire direction rather than under BBC direction only. McCall’s first experiment in music came when he formed a gramophone club which held recitals at the Sydney Conservatorium. He was later appointed Australian sales manager for the Associated Gramophone Companies of Australia, and also wrote on music for several publications, Then he went into broadcasting, and became manager of the ABC’s Victorian branch. When he returned from London in 1942 he was appointed Federal Superintendent. He flew to New Guinea to organise 9PA, Port Moresby, the ABC’s first station outside the Australian mainland. In 1945 he was appointed assistant general manager of the ABC, and was seconded for three months to the personal staff of the Governor-General, the Duke of Gloucester, as Press and Broadcoms Liaison Officer. His new job in ndon will enable him to keep in touch with the ABC and exchange programmes and techniques with it.