RECORD BBC EXPORTS!

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 664, 28 March 1952, Page 7

RECORD BBC EXPORTS!

FoR most New Zealanders, the | phrase "export of brains" implies an unfavourable balance of | trade in this department of our |} national activity. But there is also an inward traffic in brainpower. As L. MARSLAND GANDER, radio correspondent of the London "Daily Telegraph," points out in this article, the BBC Transcription |} Service’s export ‘traffic has’ increased, significantly since the War.

es OST of Britain’s exports have expanded in volume since the end of the war, but one of the strangest, insubstantial yet profoundly important, has boomed. It is the export of air-waves-in other words, voices and music recorded by the British Broadcasting Corporation on discs or tape and sent by them to all parts of the world. The BBC Transcription Service, as it is prosaically called, despatches 77,000 discs a year by air and sea. From iii to New York, from the Falkland Islands to Norway, hundreds of local broadcasting transmitters radiate these programmes round the clock. More than 50,000 of these discs are in English or with English announcements, and the rest, in nine other languages, are chiefly Spanish, Portuguese, German and Italian. A Trouble-free Service It is a complete overseas broadcasting service stripped of the difficulties that arise from variable reception or atmospherics and adapted to simple receiving and transmitting apparatus. In addition, it is supplied free te@ most foreign users, though some British Com-

monwealth stations make contributions within their means. It is a particular boon to the small one-man station. The operator, with his packet of records, is not only able to give his local audience the best London programmes, but is also provided with material for announcements. The range covered by the Transcription Service is virtually as wide as that of the BBC Home and Overseas progTammes except, of course, for news and topicalities. Light music is the most universally popular item with overseas users, but in foreign countries the English language lessons have attained immense and sustained success. At one period 400 Latin-American stations were broadcasting the conversational lessons incorporated in the series The Family of Dr. Baker, which comprised 104 fif-teen-minute sessions. All four big Variety shows of the current winter season are offered. These are Over to You, with Murdoch and Horne; Take It From Here, starring the Australians Joy Nichols and Dick Bentley, plus the very English Jimmy Edwards; Ray’s a Laugh, with Ted Ray, now being hailed as the successor to Tommy Handley; and Have a Go! with Wilfred Pickles of Yorkshire doing his hearty impromptu and good-humoured interviewing. In serious contrast, the Christopher Columbus anniversary broadcast, in Spanish, achieved popularity in South America, and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, from the Third Programme, had unexpectedly wide appreciation. Classical and religious music used by many stations overseas included Purcell’s King Arthur and The Fairy Queen, and the famous Carol Service from King’s College, Cambridge. Many of the productions of plays by such authors as Shaw and Eliot are also eagerly sought, be-

sides lighter efforts like A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh, and Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows. Three Year Limit All Britain’s best symphony orchestras are becoming increasingly familiar abroad. To ensure good quality, and also to conform to copyright requirements, the BBC lays down certain rules for users. A record may be broadcast only three times from any one transmitter. Musical records may be broadcast five times. After three years, however often a record has. been used, it must be scrapped. Another provision is that the Transcription records must not be used in sponsored advertising programmes. There are many specialised activities of the Transcription Service. For instance, Wynford Vaughan Thomas, the

well-known correspondent and commentator, is recorded in 13 programmes called Glad to Meet You, acting as a guide to the cities and countryside of Britain. "The best way to understand a country is to loiter and gossip your way through it," he says. An attractive illustrated pamphlet has been ‘issued in connection with this and many other Transcription series, The centre of the Service is in a former convent at Maida Vale, London, where a staff of 150 work under the direction of R. D’Arcy Marriott. Most of the recordings are made on slow-play-ing 16-inch discs and the comparatively small amount of tape recording is supplied chiefly to Germany. Few could have foreseen that the modest beginnings in 1938 would have yielded such impressive results today.