"Put" and "Take" in Broadcasting

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 42, 4 May 1928, Unnumbered Page

"Put" and "Take" in Broadcasting

A Heart-to-Heart Talk with Listeners on Future Possibilities SERIES of interesting articles have recently appeared in the "Radio Times" on the future of broadcasting and the probable lines of development. The views of Val Gielgud, as expressed in this series, are thought provoking and worthy of reproduction. Two main points brought out are that perfect reproduction is now possible to those taking the pains to master the simple technicalities required; and, that each will get out of broadcasting in proportion to what is put in, ie., discrimination in using broadcasting rightly and selecting items in accord with taste.

HERE exists among the many famous stories of Bismarck one which tells how, at the height of his power, he was questioned about his future. His reply was: "J need no future. My past is enough." In his case it was perhaps more than enough. But, for most of us, the present is so wearying and complicated, the past so disappointing, that it is to the future that we turn alike for consolation and for hope. We all know, and most of us remember, that extraordinarily difficult moment, common in all our lives, when we first realize the fact that we are no longer children; that we have grown up; and that we must take ourselves seriously. The transition is made doubly difficult for us by the galling fact that our parents refuse to see any change in us. Now all of us-are, in some sense, the parents by adoption of Broadcasting. And I would urge that the time has come for us to realize that Broadcasting has come to man’s estate; that it is no longer a joke, a toy, or a miracle, but a very

real combination of Art and Craft, with a future before it that is not only remarkably interesting, but also practically illimitable. A FEW weeks ago I happened to be paying a country visit to some people who had a large and modern wireless set, and a certain amount of, perhaps unusual, mechanical and electrical aptitude. For the first time I was forced in common honesty to admit that through the medium of that set I could hear a concert as perfectly and as satisfactorily as if I had been in the hall with the orchestra. This is no question of exaggeration. It is mere fact. It was so. I had not believed it possible. I had heard a good deal of broadcasting. I have done a certain amount of it myself, I have always been interested in its possibilities. But always before, I must confess, with a certain spirit of

patronage, and "making allowances" fe) — (‘of course an astonishing thing, but-’). — The realization that the making of these allowances and reservations was quite needless entirely altered the situation. It was obvious in a flash that the allowances had to be made not for broadcasting, but for the mechanical imperfections of the average receiving set; that, given the right material and the right knowledge, there is no positive reason why perfect reception should not be generally achieved. It was rather as though mankind had made allowances for a rather inadequate view of a solar eclipse, patronising the sun for its efforts, while failing to use the proper instruments to obtain the "vision splendid." I was, in short, most properly humiliated. FUTURE COMPLEXITIES. TURN, then, from this humiliating present of realisation to the future. Whether we agree with Mr. Wells, Professor Julian Huxley, or Dean Inge, as to the likely future of the human race, there seems to be no possible doubt that, barring the death of mankind in a Greater War, the immediate future will see an ever-increasing and more complex mechanical civilisation. Twenty years ago | BS) ZAR 28 PMTCT PT UU

the machinery of the embryonic motor-car was a mystery. To-day, every schoolboy is the perfect Guide to the Motor Show, and can probably describe the inward parts of the machines that won the Schneider Cup. Surely, then, it is not unreasonable nor unduly optimistic to assert that in the almost immediate future the technical knowledge that is evidently needed to secure perfect radio reception will be well within everybody’s grasp. N this respect Wireless is running neck and neck with kinematography-if such a word is permissible. Both these Arts-for I persist in a stubborn belief that both must be included among the Arts-have suffered so far from imperfect technical background combined with the natural crudity of all immaturity. Both are now on the point of achieving technical perfection. It may be reasonable for people to say that a man should not write a book while he is learning how to read and write the alphabet; or at least that if he does so, they cannot be expected to regard him as anything more than a sort of elaborate music-hall turn. In the same way they have said that they could not

take the "custard-pie" comedies of the early kinema seriously. Wireless has never been regarded quite so much as a poor joke as has the kinema. Its apparently miraculous properties have saved it from that fate. But I do not think that even its most fanatical supporters will deny that it suffers continually from a certain apathetic tolerance on the part of listeners; a tolerance based on this view of Wireless that "it is all very wonderful, but ? May I, just for a moment, assume that that "but" is removed? That not only is the certain mechanical perfection achieved, but also a belief in Wireless as one of the important incidentals of life; an incidental as important as Music, or Painting, almost as Eating? SPEED TO SOLVE SPEED. IVEN these things I would like, as everybody likes, most rashly to prophesy. Imagine- if you will indulge me so far--the beginning of every man’s day not too many decades hence. You will, I am sure, agree that the curse of our modern mechanical civilisation is its speed, combined with the ever-increasing difficulty of being unable to UMA ME PST ESTTTT TET

be in two places at once, and of getting thence to a third! That curse is unlikely to be lifted. It is more likely to increase. Every second is going to have an added value as time goes on. Now, Perfected Broadcasting, as I would like to call the ideal of this article, will save a good many of these invaluable seconds. No longer will you need to prop the paper uncomfortably against the coffeepot from which your wife wishes to pour out. You will keep the Improved Paper for the journey citywards. At breakfast you will eat in peace, while the essentials of the news of the day will be quietly spoken to you from the future 2LO. And in the evening there will no longer be the need to cope with the traffic problem to hear concert music or dance. You can hear your concert perfectly from your arm-chair. You can give your dance in your own house. HAVE cited no more than a few instances of the future importance of broadcasting in our lives. Such development is bound to come. When it will come depends on the average listener. It is his demand that must be satisfied by the B.B.C. And

if he likes his wireless set to be both imperfect and a toy it will remain so until inexorable progress defeats his apathy. Not that I believe him to be apathetic. That perfect reception is really attainable is not yet sufficiently widely known. But when it is, surely the demand will arise for this amazing instrument of civilisation to be used for the best at its best. Is there anything else in the world that can at the same time teach, amuse, inform, advise, warn, and satisfy artistically-all to an unlimited extent? It would be as radically unsound to treat the future of wireless without seriousness or respect, as it would be to laugh at a scalpel, and use it for pencil-sharpening or nut-cracking. It would be sheer waste of a supreme opportunity.

1) SOME SUGGESTIONS. WOULD like now to suggest one or two practical ways in which such a more serious attitude might be brought to bear results. Everyone, I expect, is familiar with Mr. Bernard Shaw’s definition of the word "rentleman" ;- that a gentleman is an individual who puts more into the common stock than he takes out of it. It is rapidly becomirsz necessary that, for a period at any rate, we should become gentlemen with regard to broadcasting, and all that the word Radio implies. I do not mean that we should definitely give to broadcasting more than we hope to get from it. I suspect that to be impossible in any circumstances. But it is of vital importance that people should realise that in relation to broadcasting they should "put" as well as "take"; that they can and should give besides receiving. And, when I say giving, I do not refer in any way to those ten shillings a year., It is not a question of finance, but of supply and demand. If broadcasting is to remain an amazing toy, @ minor amusement, that annual fee is important. (Continued on page 3) a | | AIT

"Put" and "Take" in Broadcasting CONTINUED FROM FRONT PAGE

For it is obvious that purely in return for such a sum-a sum which would not take you to the theatre or the kinema continuously for one week, even in the cheapest seats-the return is so great that the public cannot fairly demand any particular change for the better. Programmes are rather in the nature of mixed grills, sometimes even of the curate’s egg. But for ten shillings a year and no trouble they are amazingly, incredibly good value. There is nothing like them for value in the world. HOW TO GUIDE THE POWER. Bet that is not the point. I think we have got beyond the stage at which we paid our ten shillings to the B.U.C. as we might to any toyshop. I think that nine-tenths of us who listen realise that we have got hold of something bigger than a music-hall turn, or even a greyhound | race. , We have got hold of a great power, | with infinite possibilities. And it is we who control it. The B.B.C. is only the medium which directs that control, supplying what we demand to the best of its ability. It must supply that demand, because we supply the money that its organisation deniands. But in its turn the B.B.C. is entitled fo make certain demands on the public-on all of us. It is entitled to demand that this control of ours

it! ‘M hat we should see that our -perly before we abuse its transmitting would-be humorous. much serious attention to it as they should be an intelligent control. That ] we should know what we want before we grumble because we do not get receiving apparatus is working | promachinery, That our criticism should be helpful and not just captious or Even if most people regard broadcasting as no more than an amusement they should be ready to devote as do to their other amusements, (Tor the moment I will leave aside the question of the value of radio as a means of education, of S.O.S., of information, and so forth.) Now, if people wish to hear music; to go to a theatre, a music-hall, or a kinema, they take a certain amount of trouble as a matter of course. ‘They find out what is on there. They vo to the particular building where what they want to see or hear is being performed. They arrive more or less at the beginning, and leave at the end. ‘They do not go to the Coliseum, and grumble at the absence | of Shakespeare from the programme, or expect to hear a jazz band in the | middle of a classical concert. ‘They | criticise what they have gone to see | or hear on its own merits, not for being or not being something quite different. Rut broadcasting, by eliminating the trouble necessary in the case of get-

ting to and from theatres and concert halls, has led listeners into the habit of taking no trouble at all. Tow many neighbours and frieuds don’t we_ all know whose only method of listeningin to switch on yaguely at any time when nothing else happets to be occupying their attention! Js it unreasonable that in such cases the odds are heavily in favour of their finding themselves hearing something which interests them not at all? And then the B.B.C. gets letters complaining that its programmes do not contain what listeners really want to hear, HOW TO LISTEN PROPERLY. We have all to remember tliat the B.B.C. is in the position of hay--ing to be a universal provider on 4 huge scale. It must satisfy in the course of its programmes the tastes of every one of us. And we all like very different things. I may hate Debussy. You may loathe jazz. My aunt may haye a passien for household talks, and my cousins adore sacred music. And so adinfinitum. Surely it is up to all of use to watch for the items we like, and equally to avoid the ones we hate? Can we be surprised, let alone aggrieved, if we casually switch on, oly to be borea or actively irritated, and to switch off again ? If a listener who enjoys Wagner takes the trouble to liear a radio Wagner concert, having first taken the

trouble to see that his set is im perfect condition for receeption, and will then write to the B.B.C. and criticise that concert on its merits, he will have put as well as taken, His criticism will be positively helpful, mot negatively carping. He will have done his share towards. helping radio to fulfil its best functions, and to do its best for him. And similarly in tke case of all different: tastes. But to sit through any mixed programmes, starting at_ any time, ending when you feel in--clined, doing other things meanwhile, and with your set only casually tuned in, and then to criticise from the point of view of your own taste, forgetting all the others listeners-in in the British Isles, is unfair. For you have ot your moncy’s worth. You can’t 1elp that, If, having paid your money, you don’t take your choice, you eannot blame the B.B.C. You might as well euter any theatre without looking beforehand at what that theatre is presenting and then complain to the management that you haven’t got what you expected, WATCH FOR YOUR ITEMS. BROADCASTING must cater for us all. Hach of us can only hope to obtain his own pet result incidentally. And each of us must watch for and seize those incidents when una as they occur, as they will, in the cycle of programmes, It is someI?

‘thing like a mobile encyclopaedia, and you must find page and paragraph from the index-the programmes-to get the information, the amusement,: the music, whatever it is you person‘ally want. Finally, we must all use our imaginations. I have often bogeled at the genius of the man who invented, and the men who have siuce kept up to date, Bradshaw’s Railway Guide. My imagination can only get as far as being hopelessly staggered. Similar ly, if we all imagine what it must meun to have to keep the British Isles supplied with radio programmes for a year; programmes that shall in. volye almost every taste, art, amuse. ment, thought, that shall lurt the susceptibilities of none, that shall not be unreasonably monototious, sensational, hidebound, and that must be kept rigorously uncontroversial ig tone without being just shatteringly dull-I do not think there are many of us who would be prepared to accept the job. most confidently believe that it is largely by criticisin that radio lives, and will grow to its maturity. But if that growth is to be upwards, and the maturity a new and worthy artcraft, as it can and should be, the criticism must be informed and helpful, and it must come from listeners who listen, not from those who merely lend a casual ear,