MELBA CONCERT FIASCO

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 52, 13 July 1928, Page 14

MELBA CONCERT FIASCO

TRIBULATIONS OF 3LO NEW Zealand listeners who happen ed to tune in 3L0, Melbourne, recently will remember the disappointing break-down in the relay circuit of 8LO during a concert in which Dame Nellie Melbs was singing. The following report of the oceurrence is to hand from Melbourne :-Station -8L0, Melbourne had announced 3 ‘Melba concert to be broadcast from ‘Lilydale. Special pains had been taken, pains commensurate with the importance of the undertaking, AH over Australia listeners were waiting to hear Melba. In order that no chance error should mar the occasion, duplicate apparatus had been sent te Lilydale, and an adequate staff te operate it accompanied this. By a freak that has not yet been explained, one of the errors to which mechanism, like human beings, are prone, occurs red, and the broadcast failed. It was a disappointment to all, but that disappointment would have been even more keen had 3L0O and associated stations gone off the air that night, "What happened? No artists were in the studio, and if would have taken time to have got into touch with sufficient to provide 2 programme If happened. that certain talented people were rehearsing on the premises, These were at once pressed into service. They lacked music, bué from the reserve stores of 83L0O sufficient was drummed up for the occasion, and with hardly the loss of time taken by a single item, an enjoyable general, programme was on the air.’.