PRIVATE ENTERPRISE FAVOURED

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 7, 2 September 1927, Page 3

PRIVATE ENTERPRISE FAVOURED

Seemed (BY AUSTRALIAN COMMISSION IMPORTANT DECISIONS. The Royal Commission on Wireless, set up by the Commonwealth Goverunient, after exhaustively discussing the question of Government control, has decided in favour of the retention of private enterprise, so that broadcasting may be developed along the lines already laid down. Government supervision is, of course, proposed, but not Government regulation and control. No country in the world is more simiJar to New Zealand in conditions associated with broadcasting than Australia ‘The Commonwealth Royal Commission om Wireless has been engaged for many months investigating everv phase of Australian broadcasting, and some dozens of witnesses of-all shades of opinion have been examined by the commission. ‘he commission has involved a leavy expenditure, but the object was worthy of this, in view of the tremendous influence exercised today, and the future possibilities of broadcasting. Now, the commission is definitely averse to the Government taking over broadcasting. The decision of the commission will hot come as a surprise to those who have given careful thought to the subject of Government-controlled broadcast stations. ‘To those familiar with the general fate of State enterprises it will be welcome news that the Commmission reconimends that this wonderfully popular form of public entertainment should continue under the present system of private enterprise. Any proposal that broadcasting should be a State monopolv prompts thoughts of a State vaudeville circuit, a State concert party, a State opera company, a State-directed piano or violin virtuoso, or coloratura soprano, and a State-owned newspaper. There can be no two opinions as to whether the privately-owned stations, 2BL aud 2LC, Sydney, and 8L0, Melbourne, are more liberal, both in the quality and the quantity of the entertainment and instructive matter broadcast than the State-owned 40G, Brisbane. ‘The enterprise of the Sydnev and Melbourne stations mentioned is probably unrivalled in the world, considering the population for which they cater. Every possible avetiue of entertainment, news, and instruction is explored, and the early morning till late at night sessions are cyidence of great enterprise and managerial alertness. These stations, run under the red-tape, cut-and-dried methods of Govetument Departmental control, could never be expected to retain the standard now established by them. Visitors from America, Great Britain, and the Continent are marked in their praise of the enterprise of those three stations, made possible, of course, by their flourishing revenues." Listeners as a body would rise up in Australia if anv attempt were made to supersede private control by Governnient control, so far as these three big stations are concerned. ‘Ihe standard attained, thev say, could not be excelled, ond there are grave doubts as to the fate of broadeasting if the Government took it over. There is a striking obiectlesson to New Zealand in the decision of the Commonwealth Roval Coimmission on Wireless against Goyernment control as a substitute for private enterprise.