PROGRAMMES.

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 37, 6 April 1928, Page 4

PROGRAMMES.

‘: "In another column a miscellany of views and information is given upon the question of programmes. The one major set of. facts brought out in the recent discussion has been the financial comparison available as between the Australian stations: with their individual programmes, and New Zealand with a much smaller revenue on which to maintain four stations and provide four programmes. Reasonable listeners will agree, we think, that the only sound policy for whoever is operating the broadcasting service to pursue, is to require the cost of operation to be m&t out of current revenue-the capital investment being limited to the provision of adequate plant.to broadcast the programmes. The growth of revenue stimulated by the provision of modern stations in all four centres has now reached the point when, provided that support.is. maintained, the best local artists can be secured for broadcasting. This was announced as being the policy in Jtily’ last and the intervening months have seen the application of the policy in the different centres. While this policy has: undoubtedly satisfied a growing circle of those who appreciate good music it would seem to have still left unsatisfied a section of listeners. While it may be recognised from the outset that complaints will never be eliminated, for tastes and periods of mental growth are so widely different, the com- ° plaint of any material section is entitled to analysis and consideration. The complaint of the Auckland meeting in the final analysis was at the lack of variety in the artists rather than in the lack of merit of those artists. In a small community the provision of 260 evening concerts (apart from Sundays) in a year will be recognised as involving the reappearance of many artists before the microphone. Certainly the circle of performers should be made as wide as possible of those possessing the requisite talent and, moreover, those who do appear must be encouraged to widen their repertoire as much as possible. Even then, the same voice is bound to hecome too. familiar to habitual listeners. On this point the suggestion is made in two quarters that those whoe listen regularly night by night are bound to become nauseated or to suffer from musical dyspepsia. It would, we imagine, be the same were the performers Madame Melba or Caruso. Recognising this disability, however, it should be the company’s objective to continually widen the circle of competent performers-and the part of helpful listeners to encourage new performers to come forward-loath though some of them may be to face the exacting audience apparently comprised in the radio family. Any with the talent, however, may now have the consciousness that the market is available for them and so be encouraged to persevere. In this way alone radio will be serving a very useful purpose. _ In connection with the complaint that the same voices are heard too frequently it must also be borne in mind that artists of the calibre chosen require a period of engagement and such contracts must be fulfilled. The suggestion made also that the fees paid artists should be made available to the public is hardly tenable as a business proposition, for reasons that are discussed in the miscellany referred to. Readers will find a detailed analysis of a typical week’s programme as given by 2YA that is published elsewhere of very great interest. It shows that there has not been an undue preponderance in time given to classical music. It is a fact that individual pieces of such music run to length as compared with music in other fields just as it takes rather more words to develop a religious theme than a pointed opinion but, in totality, on the facts given there does not seem to have been an undue preponderance and, as correspondence shows, the appreciation for this class of music is of growing volume.. On the basis of the time-table published our readers are welcome to the hospitality of our columns to say of what we have too much and of what we have too little. . allocations be bettered? oo How can the