Editorial Notes

Radio Record, Volume VI, Issue 25, 30 December 1932, Page 4

Editorial Notes

Wellington, Friday, December 30, [9 32.

THE first broadcasts of the Empire Short-Wave Station appear to have left an unfavourable impression upon the minds of New Zealanl listeners. Several factors mus! be borne in mind, however; the transmissions are little more than experimental both as regards technical features and programme material ; the time of the year is not favourable to long distance reception; rebroadcasting at the best of times does not treat music very favourably. One can always tolerate imperfections in speech, but in music they are instantly noticeable, and completely destroy the value of the transmission. For this reason it seems that, even at the best of times, the greatest asset of the Empire stations will be the news and talks it makes available. Recordings of British programmes will always be welcomed by listeners, particularly if the conditions to receive them are good, but if records are to form the mainstay of the programmes, then we are afraid there will be few listeners in this part of the world. The novelty will appeal to some, and for that reason there is no doubt that the initial broadcast brought many from their beds, but probably few took the trouble to listen seriously on succeeding nights. But it will need more than a novelty to make the station a success, and great attention will have to he paid to the programme material. Long and heavy numbers are definitely out of the question with New Zealand audiences, and the rebroadcasting of these items will only bring the Board into disrepute. Furthermore. the time falling in the middle of the evening Session is not good. Perfectly good programmes have to be interrupted to impose speech and music that is. far from good, but the listener will have no complaint, we imagine, if the items broadcast are good, and comprise something he cannot hear from the New Zealand stations. IN his address at the opening of the station, Sir John Reith stressed the fact that the present transmissions were experimental ones, and that listeners in the Dominions ‘were invited to state exactly what they wanted in the way of programmes. But they must bear: in mind the technical difficulties and

make allowances in the programmes. In other words, the B.B.C. would, within reason, give the Empire what it wanted. We very sincerely hope the B.B.C. will adhere strictly to this plan, and give us popular talks, recordings of commentaries on important events, and musical items which are not available here. Otherwise the Empire station will

not be worth to the Empire what the B.B.C. planned it should. cd % a THE emergence of microphone technique as applied to talks has been a slow and painful process ; the broadcaster has learned from his mistakes-and those mistakes have been paraded as a subject for music-hall humour! The preparation and presentation of a fifteenminute talk may seem to the listener to be a small and simple matter. This is not so; every talk that is broadcast presents an individual problem, not only of matter, but of manner, too. It is, unhappily,, essential, in almost every case, that the text of a broadcast talk should be written out beforehand. There are various reasons for this; the convenience of accurate timing, the necessity for knowing what a speaker is going to say, are only two. There are actually few talkers capable of speaking impromptu, or even from notes, when faced by the microphone (many

have tried, but few, however successful they may be on the public platform or the lecture theatre, have been able to combat the peculiar circumstances of having to talk from an empty room to an invisible audience. TALKS, then, must be read aloud from a written or printed sheet, though the mere reading of written matter, however clearly performed, plainly does not constitute a broadcast talk. The . broadcast talk is perennially in competition with the published author. If he is to succeed as a talker, he must bring to his work a more live ‘and personal quality than is achievable in print; otherwise it would be absurd to maintain that it were more worth while to hear a thing broadcast than to read that same thing at leisure in the pages of a book. This live and personal quality-it has been styled ‘microphone personality’-is rare and elusive; the ideal talker must possess not only an engaging personality, reflected inthe tonal quality of his’ voice, but the ability to write colloquial English and speak that English colloquially once he has written it down. These gifts are no common possession. The gift of talking simply without a

hint of patronage, of conveying geniality without facetiousness, of talking convyersationally without wasting time, of packing a lively phrase with meaning, is a rare one. The possession of the ‘common touch’ implies a wide acquaintance with, and a real love of, humanity; the possessor alone can approximate the Ideal Broadcast Talker. WE have thrust the question of material to one side in favour of that of manner-for the very good reason that it is of only secondary importance. For every ten men who kitow a fact, there is only one who can express it adequately through the microphone for the benefit of an audience of ordinary men and women. ‘The microphone can reduce the most learned pxofessor alive to no more than a dreary monotone. That the broadcaster's material should be fresh, original, stimulating, goes without saying, yet, if we had to choose between the lively presentation of old facts and the.academie revelation of new tacts by one mumbling long words into his beard, we should not hesitate to vote for manner and let matter go hang!