Editorial Notes

Radio Record, Volume VI, Issue 19, 18 November 1932, Page 4

Editorial Notes

Wellington, Friday, November 18, 1932.

i[N an overseas radio publication, we notice that while the B.B.C. is making plans to celebrate this month the tenth birthday of British broadcasting, a contributor to the "Manchester Guardian" has announced his intention of celebrating in the same month his first ten years of Not Listening. Whether genuine or not the idea has a neat humour; it may even startle us, used as we are to day by day listening, to talking and reading’- about the programmes, to bé reminded that there are many thousands ‘of people in whose lives broadcasting plays no part. The. tapid approach of the license figures to the 100,000 mark seems to indicate that this aloof minority (or is it majority?) is daily dwindling. According to the most generous estimate the number of actual listeners in New Zealand is 400,000,, reckoning a household of four to every license taken out. If we exelude children too young to listen, the question as to whether listeners constitute a majority or a minority of the population remains in doubt. It must be born in mind, too, that a large number who are not licensees or their families are to a certain de- gree constant listeners. There remains, however, an enormous body of non-listeners about whom the contributor to the ‘ Manchester Guardian" has reminded us * um % THE regular listener will bégin to wonder about these: strange beings to whose lives radio is of no significance, who do not set their watches by the city chimes, gather their news from the news session, switch off in horror a whole evening play, postpone dinner parties to listen to graphic word-pictures of Russia, travel through Europe with someone recently returned, digest slowly the reproduced talks, write to the "Radio Record" about the scandalous lack of dance music on Sunday afternoon or the behaviour of their calves when the carillon chimes are broadcast. Are they the happier or less cheerful, wiser or less informed, nobler or ignobler members of the community? A tried and interminable subject for discussion. s * s JHE outstandingly successful G5SW rebroadcast last week will recall’ to many the days of 1922, when to hear the faintest of signals of a crystal set was an experience,

and the first programmes were greeted with an approval that is, alas, often denied to their successors of this latter day. In 1922 broadcasting was quite plainly magic, for though wireless telegraphy had existed for almost a quarter of acentury and wireless telephony was already an accepted fact, no one had visualised ‘the use of the ether to convey entertainment from a single point into millions of homes. Asa novelty and the subject of general discussion, broadcasting in 1922 claimed column upon column of space in the newspapers. To-day it is hardly regarded as a fit subject fora paragraph. If one, reflecting back over the years, feels that broadcasting in 1932 is a less fascinating entertainment than broadcasting in 1922, let him compare the scope and variety of programmes then and now. Should he discount the natural excitement once attendant upon a novelty, he will decide that broadcasting has lost none of its magic in the ten years of its growth. The simplicity with which it is now possible to listen, even to events taking place in the other half of the world, does, it is realised, constitute.a danger; for what is simple and plentiful is apt, in a contrary world, to become negligible. % ~ x THE practice of recording programmes for circulation among radio stations has hitherto found little favour in Europe, although it has been for some years popular in the United States of America, where small stations in outlying areas have welcomed the programme material, It is, therefore, a matter of outstanding interest and some novelty that the B.B.C. should recently have decided to supplement with recorded programmes the proposed broadcasting service from the new Empire short-wave transmitter at Daventry. These programmes, which will be produced with all the available artistic resources of the B.B.C., are to be recorded on discs and circulated to all stations overseas which subscribe to the service, The advantages of this method of distributing programmes from the Home Country are several and manifest. The original programme will be available for broadcasting at any. time, ard will be received by the local listener at perfect quality. The B.B.C. has decided to initiate this service in response to the increasing demand of overseas stations for Bri-

tish programmes. The discs recorded for this purpose will, of course, be made solely for broadcasting; they will not be available for purchase by the general ‘public. * *s + "THE scheme is an ambitious one. It marks a further forward step in the linking of our. widely-scattered Empire by means of modern invention. The programmes recorded will contain much that is national in character, as well as entertainment of a general and topical character. It is hoped to inaugurate the new service within the next few months and that, later, it may be paralleled by a similar service enabling B.B.C, listeners to hear programmes produced and recorded in the Dominions.