DEALERS' LICENSES.

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 35, 15 March 1929, Page 6

DEALERS' LICENSES.

‘THE announcement that dealers’ licenses for the sale of radio sets and apparatus have been revised, the classes reduced, and the rate of fee slightly increased, will be received with mixed feelings by the trade. There is one section which will be disappointed that the increase had not been of a very much more substantial nature. Others will protest against the increase. The decision is a very important one and of a far-reaching nature. The occasion for the Post and Telegraph Department licensing radio dealers is based upon the conditions of the service and the nature of the control exercised by the Department. It is an open secret that, because of what was considered to be the attractive nature of radio from a profit-making point of view, the number of radio dealers seeking the trade attendant upon listeners was in excess of actual business requirements. Comparatively small capital was required for entry into the trade; and that reason, together with the absence of real technical ‘ qualification imposed upon those seeking a license as a condition of their operation, led to an undue preponderance of dealers to listeners. The commercial reaction from this position has been bad. The rate of business mortality has been high, and the large radio houses have unquestionably suffered heavily from bad debts incurred because of the flimsy nature of many of the small dealer businesses. From the listener’s point of view, too, the reaction has not been good. The quality of service of many of the smaller organisations has not been what it should have been, and the same applies in a certain degree to the nature of the equipment sold and the trade done by them. Many small businesses, of course, are quite efficient and satisfactory, but unquestionably a proportion have failed in giving real business service. FOR the reasons enumerated, a definite movement developed in the more stable sections of the trade in favour of the imposition of heavier license fees. Arguments in favour of that payment were that, by requiring a high financial standing, weaker elements would be eliminated with benefit to the commercial stability of the trade; further, that by raising the standard of the dealers remaining in the business, the service available to listeners would be improved. Naturally such a point of view encountered opposition. This opposition took its stand on the democratic basis that it should be open to any man interested to exploit his skill and capital and engage in the trade. Further, that in the interests of radio no barrier should be erected of the nature

of a close corporation; rather, every facility should be available to the public to secure its radio sets and parts as cheaply as possible and as conveniently as possible. [N spite of the democratic basis of this reasoning it has not, we think, proved to be commercially sound. An excess of competition does not result in cheapness nor efficient service. Spreading the available volume of trade over too thin a surface leaves all participating in it hungry and unsatisfied and working on too fine a margin. That is not good business. Frankly, therefore, we think the real weight of argument in the special circumstances of the trade lies with those who contend that the betterment of radio calls for a stiffening of the requirements, financial and otherwise, on the part of those engaged in the trade. For this reason we think the increase in the radio license ‘fee imposed by the Department is in the right direction. It has been made only after consultation with the trade itself, and, as indicated, is a compromise between two sections-those who want a much highe rate and those who argue for the right to trade without undue pr@nium. The tendency of the increased license fee will be to make back-door’ trading unprofitable and drive out of the business the man of straw whose enthusiasm and keenness do not compensate for commercial weakness. In the upshot, concentration of the trade in fewer hands and the avoidance of bad debts, will tend to cheapen rather than increase the cost of radio to the listener. That, after all, is the clear-cut objective -that the listener should secure his requirements on a reasonable basis, and that the trade in its service to the listener should be able to conduct its business efficiently, capably, and at a reasonable but not undue profit for its enterprise. PUTS HATTTETTIOTUTTTTATTTTETTATRTTU TT ALEVE RT ATLUTTATAEUR STREET AT AHIUNTETOFTTT ITNT ALTTETATATEETOTTTOTTATIATS HTTP ETAT TT PATTTTETTTTATTTTTTTV TTT TTT TTT TTT TTT TTT ny 1) yr