Holiday from Noise

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 407, 11 April 1947, Page 15

Holiday from Noise

NOTHING but moans are to be heard just now from the majority of my fellow-listeners in Dunedin. Complaints are as follows; (1) We can’t get to work in time without constant nagging from 4ZB, and even if that station is willing to give us the time every morning per phone, what about those of us who aren’t on the phone? (2) Why should the South Island be restricted as to broadcasting hours when we have electricity to spare? (3) North Island listeners can’t get many South Island stations anyway, and it’s not likely they’d waste power trying to get us during the daytime. (4) What's to stop us from listening to shortwave? Personally, I think

such complaints can be answered. (1) How did people keep their clocks on the ' correct time before the discovery of radio? (2) What is there so remarkably thrilling about South Island daytime programmes that we can’t bear to be without them for a while? (3) Since most power is wasted by that moron, the "constant listener," who leaves the radio on from dawn till midnight but never consciously listens to it, he or she will not notice that the thing has been cut off, anyhow. (4) Who has time for the (continued on next page)

VIEWSREEL (Cont’d.) (continued from previous page) concentrated listening demanded by shortwave, during the daytime working hours? The whole matter of the restrictidns seems to me a storm in a tea cup. There may be a case to be made out against restricting the South Island for the shortages in the North; but it does not seem to me of vital importance to have noise at my beck and call from 6.0 a.m. till 12.0 p.m. every day of the week. An enforced holiday from constant listening will do our nerves (and those of our neighbours) a great deal of good.