The BBC

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 395, 17 January 1947, Page 5

The BBC

Y the courtesy of the High Commissioner for the United _ Kingdom we were able to givé our readers last week a fairly full summary of the recent House of Commons debate on the BBC. It is probably safe to say, too, that most of them would be pleased with the result of the debate. There is no very strong desire in New Zealand for revolutions in the BBC, although criticism is growing in the United Kingdom itself. There is clearly a strong, and increasing, feeling that there are

dangers in the BBC's monopoly, but the complaint is that this is bad for the BBC and not that the BBC has misused its powers. It was, however, a little strange to find Mr. Morrison meeting the demand for competition with the claim that there was compétition now between light and heavy programmes. Competition to mean anything must be competition in the same field-light programmes against light, heavy against heavy, and so on. To call it competition when chamber music fights for time or listeners against jazz is like saying that you improve the breed of horses when you breed better cows. The BBC will not escape the dangers of monopoly until each of its services Has to fight for public support against another service of the same kind simultaneously available, and it is extremely difficult to see how this is to be achieved in its own house. It is, however, not. impossible to get competition going at low pressure between the different regions in Britain-and that is happening to some extent. But the kind of competition the freedom critics demand is a choice between the BBC and another service with the same power and privileges. Though it is safe to say that only a minority yet demand that, Parliament’s extension of the existing system must not be misread. The last licence ran for ten years, six of which were war years. The extension for a further five years meant no more than that the BBC was given time to do what the war had prevented it from doing earlier.