Much Ado About The Third

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 925, 3 May 1957, Page 5

Much Ado About The Third

‘THE Third Programme, launched by the BBC in September, 1946, is known to most New Zeeland listeners mainly by such programmes as the Reith Lectures, the BBC World Theatre series, some Festival music and the occasional talk. Described by some of its devotees as "a last bulwark against illiteracy," and by its more outspoken detractors as "impossibly highbrow," the Third has nevertheless pioneered at times programmes that have satisfied all classes of listeners; Fred Hoyle’s talks on the Nature of the Universe, for instance, and Nevile Coghill’s translation of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, initially commissioned for the Third, were later broadcast to wider audiences and eventually published in book form. From October this year the Third Programme will generally start about two hours later, at 8.0 p.m. instead of 6.0 p-m., aS was previously the custom. Other changes in the sound services will be the partial streamlining of the Light and Home so that when necessary they can be broadcast as a single programme. Announcing these changes on April 8, Sir Ian Jacob, Director-General of the BBC, explained that the growth of the television audience made some adjustment of sound programmes necessary. He said, regarding the Third, that its essential characteristics will remain unchanged, adding "the Corporation had welcomed the support given by the Press to the programme." The "support" referred to took various forms; and from the beginning The Times did its share in publishing the alarmed views of its readers as soon as the BBC discussions for the reformation of. sound broadcasting started in February. "My husband and I (read one letter) regard ourselves as very average lis-

teners, with no particular specialist interest in broadcasting; but we have been staunch supporters of the Third Programme ever since its inception. In fact, we regard it almost as the mainstay of our lives, and feel that its unique combination of qualities has a value to our country which is quite inestimable. Indeed so strongly do we feel about its possible loss that, if the Third Programme goes, we go too!"

Quoting this letter Peter Simple in his "Way of the World" Column in the Daily Telegraph of February 19 wrote:

"Already. I see them on the road-a piteous column of refugees 50,000-odd strong-from England’s cultural famine. They push before them in perambulators their scant possessions-a few volumes, dog-eared and heavily annotated, of Heidegger, Rilke, Sartre, Ouspensky, Herbert Read, Empson, and .Gropius; a long-playing record or two, Buxtehude and Schoenberg. Their sandalled feet are raw and bleeding, their beards and corduroys grey with dust. "Behind them they leave a Hampstead shuttered and deserted. Wolves howl up Downshire Hill; the Everyman Cinema is the haunt of bats and owls; over Parliament Hill the watchful vultures wheel. "Bang go the savings of 50,000 lifetimes savings hard-earned from penurious reviews and hard pressed poetry bookshops, on tickets for Canada, Australia, New Zealand---who cares —

where? But fate laughs last: there are no Third Programmes there either." During the rest of February the camPaign to preserve the Third unsullied and unabbreviated continued, with more Jetters in correspondence columns and a leader in The Times praising the BBC for that part of its sound programmes in which quality and taste rather than popularity were the deciding factors, but warning that if "survival is to depend on the counting of heads then, as the programmes contract, they are bound to forsake minorities, to concentrate on items that are popular," In early March however, came the first faint wave of a banner for this particular minority. This took the typical form of an appeal for those interested to write to a certain London address. This single advertisement in the personal column of The Times in ten days brought in 1500 letters of support. This =

was the genesis of the Third Programme Defence Society. When three weeks later at a meeting in Charing Cross the Society actually came into existence and elected a first committee of 28, Punch commented that "the annual general meeting will derive an appropriately original flavour from having a completely empty hall and a completely full platform." The report on this original meeting suggests that not even Third Programme listeners see eye to eye. The schoolmaster whose advertisement began the whole thing said that he particularly blessed the Third on Saturdays, and had gone in his comparisons only so far as "the completely banal hour of The Archers," when he was interrupted by two of the audience (both of whom later joined his Soprano saying: "We want tolerance, and I don’t give a hoot who listens to The Archers so long as they leave re alone," and: "If you asked how many people listened to The Archers, you would get a much higher response than for watching television. I listen to The Archers." Mr Needs (the schoolmaster), says The Times, began his address "by asking that the ‘dignified apathy’ which support for the Third Programme should give way to the view that the best method of defence was attack ... He had received 3200 letters carrying more than 4000 signatures ina fortnight. Mr Needs’ s style is homely for the Third. ‘The cat,’ he said, ‘has almost been smothered through sitting on the mat. The postman no longer calls; the post office sends a van.’ "He then," concludes The Times. report, "enumerated the virtues of the Third beginning with ‘dignity’ (‘People who have not met before do not use Christian names .. . How can an Oxford don have dignity he is announcing Family Favourites’) . . . He would guarantee that at any the Third had more listeners than. anyone else — listeners, not hearers. Ninety-nine per cent of Light Programme listening is on tap; it’s a background.’ " Several weeks after this meeting the BBC decisions were announced, and the dust of controversy has still not settled. The Third Earns Defence. Society still aims to secure a change of policy before the new decisions take effect in the autumn. Of the plan to make the Light Programme longer and lighter a Times leader darkly comments: "Goethe’s last words may have been ‘more Lge’ They must not be the BBC’s." 5