FORWARD MOVE IN RADIO.

Radio Record, Volume IV, Issue 44, 15 May 1931, Page 6

FORWARD MOVE IN RADIO.

"‘PHE announcement made last week that the service from 2YA would "". be augmented by a 50 per cent. increase in the hours of operation makes the most important forward move in radio made in New Zealand of recent years. With this increase the service may be said tobe attaining a full standard of operation. Thanks to its power. 2¥Avhas a.daylight range over the Dominion, so that the extension will be effective for purposes of demonstration on the higher-powered esets right throughout the Dominion. Many new features will be "incorporated in the programmes to cover the longer hours. Efforts ‘an particular will be made to interest the housewife who, ensconced vin her home through the mornings and afternoons, is in the best "position to benefit by the longer hours of operation. we a) "WHILE it is satisfactory that the Radio Broadcasting Company "snow finds itself able to undertake this expansion of hours, we would have been glad to have been able to record a more "important move on the part of the Government, i.¢., a move calculated "to permit the Broadcasting Company to embark upon its plan, promul"gated some two and a half years ago, for the development of effective "relay stations in the main provincial centres. It is understandable -that the Government in the present state of politics will not be in a "hurry to take any aggressive stand in this field. At-the same time "we feel confident that a bold, constructive policy, aiming at the developsment of radio on a unified basis throughout the Dominion, would be "popular. We discussed some weeks ago the advisability of decision ‘being reached in this matter. The present economic position has its bearing upon the radio situation in two ways. First, it makes it inad‘visable for the Government to contemplate the expenditure itself of "the money necessary to undertake Government control. In the second ‘place, the very fact of times being-hard is acting as a stimulus to the -use of radio, for, while people are staying more at home, they are "turning to radio for their necessary entertainment and amusement. "Radio, therefore, is enjoying: what may almost be described as a boom.

That applies particularly in the cities, where dealers are as active as} they have been at any time in the past five years, and also in portions’. of the country suitably situated. That activity could most effectively be carried into the main provincial centres by adoption of the comprehensive scheme of relay stations now pigeon-holed. Once that scheme is put into action, then radio expansion will be intensified and accelerated. Glad as we are, therefore, to record the expansion in hours now made by 2YA, we still look forward. for the day when an even more important development can be inaugurated. It is only when that day comes that radio will be made available over the fullest possible area of the Dominion. From one angle the present times are not opportune for that expansion. From another angle, that of supplying the definite need of the people, the time never was more opportune.