Insufficient Talent.

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 10, 21 September 1928, Page 31

Insufficient Talent.

y Even Melbourne Exhausted. (CRITICS occasionally cry out for new talent to be heard from the New Zealand’ broadcast stations, but ‘they never stop to consider the serious yy cd € limitations imposed by the relatively small communities from which the Radio Broadcasting Company of New Zealand have to draw their performers. There are over 300 concerts per year broadcast from Auckland, Weilington, Ohristchurch, and Dunedin, and none of these cities has a seventh the population of, for instance, Melbourne. And yet the supply of the pest talent in Melbourne has admittedly become exhausted. A Melbourne radio writer says: "Speaking to me the other day in the street, a critic of 3LO gave it as his opinion that the programmes could be better if we had a better class of singer. Well, that is a truism, of course, and I' said so. ‘I mean, why don’t they pay the price? asked the critic. ‘And, then, the same with violinists and pianists. Why can’t we get the best?’ "That set me thinking. That was constructive criticism. I take no notice of the fellow who wants. football and racing, and lashes 3LO because it pets on musie instead. He means nothing but infernal selfishness. But this other chap was on a different tack and I began to think. ‘What singers,’ I pondered, ‘are available for the radio, what violinists, what organists, whom the listening public have been denied the privilege of hearing? For curiosity I began to think them out. The result was against the critic. Do you know that there is not a single top-notch art-

ist in Melbourne who is not under engagement to 8L0, or who, alternatively, has refused to be broadcast? "With the exception of one or two, every first-class Melbourne singer is on the air at some time or other."