B CLASS STATIONS NOT APPROVED.

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 32, 22 February 1929, Page 6

B CLASS STATIONS NOT APPROVED.

-A NNOUNCEMENT is made that the Postmaster-General, the Hon. x J. Donald, has decided not to approve the request for permission to establish and operate B Class stations in New Zealand for the sale of advertising time. We are convinced that this decision on the pait of the Minister is sound and in line with the best course of development for the future protection of radio in general and listeners in particular. . We have given in our columns full publicity to the case made for the operation of B Class stations dependent upon advertising revenue, and have set forth in detail our view that that policy was fundamentally unsound, having regard to the best interests of the present and future development of radio. Into those reasons there is now no need to go. ‘The departmental officers from whom the Minister called for report undoubtedly placed the full facts before the Minister and enabled him to arrive at the decision he has ,come to. Detailed reasons for his action will be issued by the Minister in due course, and will be read with much interest by both those for and against the proposition. In our opposition to the proposal to introduce B Class stations relying upon advertising revenue, we have been concerned wholly and solely with the need for developing the radio service upon a strong and stable foundation. The unified system of control, in our view, is undoubtedly the better. It is proving most satisfactory in Britain, and is enabling a very high standard of service to be given there without the intrusion of the advertising element. So far as the advocates of B Class stations were concerned with the introduction of longer hours and improved service, we are wholly with them. Those objectives, however, will in our view best be attained by concentration upon the existing organisation than by the creation of a new anc competitive organisation, Dealers, we know, desire longer hours of operation, particularly such as will permit the demonstratiot: of sets for a longer period in business hours and facilitate the sale of wireless equipment. That objective is commendable and has our support. No one would be more pleased than ourselves to see it possible for the Broadcasting Company to give longer sessions and more sessions. It may be taken for granted that the Broadcasting Company itself is alive to the desirability of expanding its service, but as a business proposition it unquestionably must take into account the means for meeting the cost of such increased service. It is true that of late the revenue available to the Broadcasting Company has increased, but as a definite offset against this must be placed the apparently unavoidable seasonal decline suffered in the early stages of the Company’s financial year when, following on March 31 last. registrations were for a long period below 30,000. In our view. hard and fast adherence to the present license year is unbusinesslike, and imposes an unnecessary loss upon the revenue available for broadcasting. That, however, is by the way, but it is a material point with which to counter those who take the maximum figures and glibly compute the revenues available for radio. That the Broadcasting Company should increase its service in every way possible is desirable, and we shall not cease to urge that as opportunity offers and means nermit .