A RADIO CURFEW

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 25, 6 January 1928, Page 2

A RADIO CURFEW

RESTRICTIONS IN ITALY. Ten o'clock curfew for radio broadcasting is the newest plan in Italy in an effort to stamp out imported vices such as jazz and dancing, ; Its purpose is to prevent dancing ip private homes which, made possible by broadcasting dance music, has increased greatly since the police closed nearly all popular dance halls. If the plan now being urged upon the Govyernment by influential — ecclesiastics, headed by Father Paoloni of the famous Montecassino monastery, is adopted, every radio station will be compelled to terminate ‘its programme at -an hour when dancing has scarcely begun. At the same time, church reformers have pledged themselves to work for the adoption of a similar system for other couutries. ‘The 10 o'clock curfew is actually a compromise plan, since the reformers really want to prohibit broadcasting of all light or danceable music, restricting musical programmes to performances at celebrated theatres, ° Keclesiastics also would like to have programmes devoted exclusively to informative and educational material, .but this scheme, it is understood, is considered excessive by civil reformers, Onprotesting churchmen maintain Italy should remain several steps ahead of other nations, in many of which the church crusade agaiust postwar immortality is bearing fruit, |