SIMULTANEOUS PROGRAMMES

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 24, 30 December 1927, Page 13

SIMULTANEOUS PROGRAMMES

CATERING FOR TASTIHS,

Recent: statements by the British Broadcasting Corporation indicate that that organisation has decided to begin the alteration of its system to permit of the transmission of alternative programmes. As in New Zealand it has been found difficult to cater for all tastes im music. Lovers of classical music have complained when they have been obliged to listen to dance music, and jazz enthusiasts have been equally dissatisfied when they were obliged to listen to programmes of a more serious nattire than those they desired. Some time ago an effort was made in America to overcome this trouble by building stations in duplicate, so that when one was transmitting light music, the other was providing a programme of classical music. ‘wo different transmitting stations and studios and two different transmission wave-lengths were, of course, necessary. The British Broadcasting Corporation investigated the results obtained in American ¢xperiments, and its engineers are satis-

fied that the dual transmission is. the only method by which one of the greatest problems in providing programmes can be overcome, Accordingly arrangements have been made fur the conversion of the main stations for dual transniission. * A Costly Innovation. New Zealand, with its limited population of broadcast listeners, is not in a position to expect the dual programme innovation, and even in Australia, with its hundreds: of thousands of listeners, the expense of such a system precludes its introduction. A suggestion has been made, however, that in: Melbourne and Sydney, where there are two or more broadcast stations, there should be some co-ordination in the compiling of progiamines so that two stations in éach citv shall not transmit, high-class, or lighter music, simultaneouslv, An Australian writer says :- "The only excuse there can be for the presence of two powerful stations in one centre is that their programmes should be so co-ordinated to provide an improved service for listeners, If this is not done one of the two stations would be far better in -some other centre where there is at present no station in existence,’"