WHAT LISTENERS WANT

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 19, 25 November 1927, Page 15

WHAT LISTENERS WANT

INDIAN BROADCASTERS’ DILEMMA Throughout the radio world of all countries the abiding difficulty that faces broadcasters is how to please the greatest number of listeners. In India, as in New Zealand, this problem is always before the broadcasting company. It is not expected that all the listeners can be pleased all the time, nor even can some of the listeners be pleased all the time, bunt if all of the listeners can be pleased’ some of the time much has beet achieved by the broadcasting company. It boils down to a question of pleasing everyone in a due proportion to numWHAT DO LISTENERS WANT? Under the above caption the ‘Indian Radio Times" (the official organ of the Indian Broadcasting Co., Ld.) Says i- . "The penalty of being connected with broadcasting is that wherever you zo people will discuss it with you, often to the exclusion of anything else, but it’s a pleasant penalty. and the interest of the subject so great that vou can never tire of it. A great deal of the discussion is criticism and: most of it destructive, and the opinions expressed are so varied that it is extremely difficult to judge between them. Let us take a few examples. "‘\ Mofussil resident speaks. He lives 15 miles from the nearest town and five from the nearest neighbour. I wish you’d give us more news; you just whet our appetites for more, and we impatiently wait for our papers two davs later in the hopes of getting fuller details. "S resident on Malabar Hill speaks. 'T can’t think of what interest your News Bulletin can be; I’ve read it all either in the morning or evening paper before you broadcast it.’ "An Indian music lover speaks. ‘Can't vou give us a greater varicty in the evenine’s programme of our music; one or two singers become motiotonous ?? "Another Indian music lover: ‘T don’t like the way the Indian progranime is split up; just as vou get to appreciate a singer’s style, he stops and something else starts.’ "Two speakers, one a charming voung girl, the other a ladv whiose dancing days are over. ‘Why can’t we have more dance music? You give us much too much high-brow stuff? ‘The items I love are the orchestral and vocal ones: it’s splendid to hear good music again after being siarved of it? "These, of course, are merely tynical remarks, but the question is: ‘What do listeners want?’ The reply is that it depends upon the listener. Different listeners want different things, and so does the same listener, We have to try and steer a middie course, pleasing evervone a little or more, offending no one."’ And India has a programme board of ahout a dozen notabilities to arrange programmes to suit all tastes.