TV or Not TV

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 732, 24 July 1953, Page 6

TV or Not TV

-That is the question for British advertisers, says J. W. GOODWIN, whose impressions-airmailed from London-appear below.

and may at last find that timemellowed drink, I prom-sed _ myself. Certainly the black, roughhewn beams anc the uneven whitewashed plaster looked old ‘enough to make my _ request, appropriate, and as 1 quickened my pace round a bend in the Shropchire lane I saw through the trees the tiled roof lichened and bowed with ace i it’s a pub, [ll ask for mead This was a scene to make a tourist all a-twitter, this was ore of the. sturdy hearts of England, with the solid virtues of its years-and of the Long Parliament, for the date cver the doo; was .1640. Then I spied It. If it had been the "head of ‘Cromwell himself, ' could not have been more start'*d; at least, that On the gable would have been more suitable than the H television aeria!. In a flash I was swept on: of that isolated valley on the Welsh border, back to the busy world of buses and queues where people argue with scme feeting about sponsored television. back to Westminster where the Government’s proposals to allow advertising on the air have split both the Conservative and Labour parties as rarely before That is typical of the sccial revolution in Britain brouget abcut in five years by. some 2,000.000 TV sets. _ In 1948 television was stil! something of a novelty restricted to London. It was still a "class" ertertairment with 24 per cent of. the sets owned by people earning more than £1000 a year and @ similar percentage by people in the ' £650 to £1000 group. The conspicuous aerial was almost an ostentatious sign that one had arrived socially. It might even have been suspected that*those people who had formerly. sported. plus-fours to impress the neighbours’ (for here golf -s still the sport for people who cannvot afford to hunt but who’cannot afford nut to meet the people who do) sometimes owned ne more than the aerial. Then a set was spoken of almost with awe, certeinly ‘with pride. and always as. "tele-

vision." Now it is casually eccepted as TV. This was impressed on me when, after fowr years’ abserce, I returned to England and. was seeking accommniodation in an industrial city. I was told by landladies that "the house is equipped with ‘all the usual amenities, including TV," or that "there’s TV and radio, of course, and. hot water." I relished the ‘of course,’ and the afterthought about hot «ater in an area of dark satanic mills. The TV’s turned on, God’s in His heaven, and all’s right with the world. More Bottles The social revoluticn which has increaséd the TV_ audience to equai the circulation of the News of the Worldand it is a comparison not without sig-nificance-is to be seen in a variety of ways, some quite unexpected. Fo: ex-

ample, when a new transmitter enslaves a new section of Britain, there is an immediate increased demand for screw-stoppered bottles. There may also be a drop in bus takings. The explenation is that if a man is not to go to the pub at right, he will want to take his drink nome with him, and if the family watch TV, they wil! not go by bus to the pictures. According to the chairman of the BBC Governors, Sir Alexander Cadogan, expenditure on TV sets has adversely affected the sales of washing machines, refrigerators and other household "extras." Less Time on Hobbies A survey by the BBC audience research department shows that TV cuts the time spent on hobbies, visits to the public house, cinema going, radio listening. and reading, However, few gardeners allow it

to distract them and outdoor games have not been much effected. Somewhat’ different conclusions from these, based on the opinions of one viewer in 1000, were reached by a University of Birmingham survey of the effects on one in 15 adolescents dt Coventry. One in every four boys and girls questioned had been induced by TV to patronise outdoor sport oftener, though they now stayed at home far more. As forthe effect on reading, public libraries and publishers report unexpected rises in book borrowing last year. Adults spend between 10 ani 11 hours a week looking-in. Mcst of those questioned do not think that children watch TV too much, though at 12 to 14 years old they average nearly six hours a week, and children of 15 even longer.

A touch of television now. makes: the whole world kin and a comment on ‘last night’s programme is as likely to open a conversation with a stranger as a remark about the weather-though the cynic might remark that even in England the weather cannot always be bad. On the other hand, television is meking people less sociable. Whereas one’s friends used to come for a cosy fire. side chat, some now ereet their hostess with: "What's on?" and then say nothing more till a couple of hours leter: "Not so bad. Good night." Question on what they were doing be+ tween 8.30 and 9.0 p.m., the peak viewing time, 61 per cent of several thousand people were looking-in, seven per cent had gone to bed, cix per cent were listening to the radio, and 20 per cent were out. In a similar number of homes without television, 31 per cent were listening-in, 26 per cent were indoors doing something else, 11 per cent had gone to bed, and 32 per cent were cut. Td some extent TV is still a "class" entertainment, but it is a very different class. The percentage of viewers ..with incomes above £1000 has dwindled, in four years by a third to nine per. ‘cent. More than half TV owners now ‘earn less than £8 a week. The warning of the Beveridge Commission that commercial radio would lead.to a lowering of standards makes it significant that seven out of 10 of the adults who spend most time viewing left school at 14 or 15. Given two families with different levels of educa: tion but similar incumes, it is the family with the lower education which gets a TV set first, say the BBC researchers. 5 vegies Ten years of. public opinion sampling shows that the BBC has never stood higher in public estiraation and now three out of five people pre‘er the control of TV programines to be left as it is. On none of the five occasions s.nce 1943 that the question has heen asked in a Gallup poll have more than two out of five favoured commercial radio. Last year, the women, at whom most of the advertising would be directed, were decidedly against it. Whoever controls the programmes, television can be too attractive. This survey would have been written last night if it had not been for two hours looking-in at Lords and Wimbledon: --$-$--------