THE CONSTANT CRITIC
HO, one often wonders, is Constant Listener? Those who have broadcast will remember the awful conviction that nobody listened at all, yet the whole radio day is geared to this imaginary and pervasive person, who is abroad from 6.0 a.m. until midnight, and who, like some bat from Below, will complain that he is expected to listen to either Aunt Daisy or the Correspondence School, or that he gets lost in the middle of the Weather Report-which I do, and the only remedy, as we’ve been told, is to go and live in the Chatham Islands-one always wakes up for that. Does Constant Listener work, or eat? Does he read, does he write? More important, does he listen to the programmes he wants to listen to? Has he a wife and children? (On Sunday one of our youngsters resurrected Jet Morgan from Dunedin. Not that again, for pity’s sake.) These things I know: Constant Listener must be single, idle, and of amazingly limited taste, considering the time spent at the radio. Nothing pleases him. He wants classics at breakfast, Rock ’n’ Roll in the Classical Hour: he wants stories instead of criticism, racing instead of cricket. Constant Listener, we all know, is a myth, but we just can’t ignore him.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19570412.2.46.1
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 922, 12 April 1957, Page 24
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213THE CONSTANT CRITIC New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 922, 12 April 1957, Page 24
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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