European Broadcasting Systems

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 47, 7 June 1929, Page 32

European Broadcasting Systems

Co-operation for World Peace —

([PHERE is no doubt about it (says A.G.A. in "World Radio") broadcasting is one of the chief factors in the promotion of understanding between nations-which again is the only means of. transferring war from the battlefield to the conference table. For, if we understand our neighbours and those that are further away, or, if we at least know something of them, at first hand, and not through the medium of antiquated school books, we can talk, and do not require to resort to cruder means of defending our point of view. Let: us pass in review, before our mental eye, what is being done in the heart of Hurope, ten years after the war and five years or so after the birth of broadcasting in those countries. I, of course, refer to activities in the broadcasting world. RMANY has the largest number of listeners on the Continent. The largest percentage, we are told, of the world, and not only of Europe, is to be found in Denmark. This latter country, however, is beyond the scope of this article. Austria, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Switzerland, and Czecho-Slovakia are the six countries which go to make up what is geographically termed Central Europe. So many countries, so many different ways of organising broadcasting! In Austria, to take just one instance, the fees payable by listeners are graduated according to private income. The listener in Germany pays 140 per cent. more per annum for his broadcasting than do we in Britain, and 40 per cent. of their license money is retained by the State, the remainder going to the broadcasting company, which, though

only responsible for the programme side of radio, has to pay for the technical transmission as well. In Holland, no fees whatever are paid by listeners beyond an initial few pence for the registration of his set. Broadcasting is subsidiséd from voluntary contribution in the case of the neutral, organisations, and from party or other funds in the case of the other companies, [NX Hungary the listener pays about 1s. 10d. a month, of which part goes to the broadcasting company, and part is retained by the postal authorities who, in Hungary, are not only responsible for the technical side of transmission, but also pay for it). In Switzerland the listener pays a little more than in Britain, and here we have approximately the same system as our own, which means to say that one company is responsible both for the transmitters and for the programmes, and pays for both. There is one fundamental difference, however. In Switzerland there are five different broadcasting companies, one for each of the five transmitters. In Germany the programme control is decentralised, but the technical side is under single control. Finally, in Czecho-Slovakia, we find listeners paying about the same fees as in Switzerland-about 13s., of which two-fifths go to the programme company, the remaining three-fifths-from which the complete technical service is paid-being retained by the postal authorities. HUS in Austria we have, on the programme side, one company with its central seat in Vienna; in Germany nine regional, independent companies. constituents of the co-ordinating central company in Berlin; in Holland no central control, but private companies hiring transmitters from other private companies; in Hungary eentral control, one company; in Switzerland five companies members (all) of an "amicable union": in Gzecho-Slovakia, finally, central control; one company with its central seat in Prague. In spite of this great diversity in the organisation of broadcasting in Central Burope, there is one factor which we find in every country: a certain amount of State or Government control over the programmes. This may be exercised indirectly as in Switzerland, by means of provisions in the concession or directly, as perhaps in Germany, by means of local controlboards. The State is therefore in a position to use, if it thinks it desirable, the broadcasting stations as a means of propaganda not only for its own coun- try, but also, perhaps, against other countries. Luckily, this eventuality is not the case. The "protocole amiable" of Geneva, which was signed by the Central European stations, together with many others, states that no station will broadcast any matter likely to be regarded as propaganda against another. Broadcasting is, of course, widely used throughout Central Europe for the right kind of propaganda, or let us say advertisement-namely, the adver-

tising of the country’s own special "features." Every firm advertises its wares, to make them better known, so why should a country not do the same, also to become better known, and subsequently better understood, by its neighbours? Central Europe, the scene of hundreds of battles throughout the centuries, the geographical name for a conglomeration of States with sometimes widely mixed population, and also the part on our globe where the greatest diversity of broadcasting organisation systems exist, Central Burope, we can safely say, is the very place for broadcasters to show: the world how nation can "speak peace unto nation."