WOMEN AND WIRELESS

Radio Record, Volume VIII, Issue 27, 11 January 1935, Page 5

WOMEN AND WIRELESS

BROADCASTING is essentially a domestic affair; something that-is addressed to the home and the individual. And for this very reason a wireless set is a possession treasured more by women than by men, for the former, by virtte of the lives they lead, constitute by far the greatest proportion of the listening | public. Filson Young, the well-known English writer, says :- Although the reception of a broadcast programme is a domestic affair, the sending out of it is a public matter. It is a sending out, to whomsoever it may concern, of subject matter deemed to, be of general interest; and the broadcaster is a publicist dn a very large scale. His function is generative and creative; the function of the listener is receptive and cultural. The broadcaster sows the seed; it is only in the listener that it can germinate and produce unything. It is of the nature of broadcasting that much of. the seed is wasted-falls on barren or stony ground, or among weeds of a much stronger growth, which choke it and prevent its fruition. Hence the importance of the individual listener. And hence, in my opinion, the particular importance of women to broadeasting. In my opinion they are by far the best listeners-the most receptive, the most attentive, the most appreciative, and, in the best sense, the most eritical. The "Radio Record" is able to bear out this statement. Some of the most constructive letters come from women; the Broadcasting Board finds that women listeners are often less biased than men and the board’s daily mail contains many letters from women who have obviously given careful attention to the programmes over the air. On the broadcasting side, too, women are playing a part. Quite apart from the "‘aunts’" who delight thousands of youngsters every day, we have such capable and entertaining speakers as Mona Tracy, the Christchurch writer, who is now one of New Zealand's most popular broadcasters, Margaret Macpherson, Lady Statham, Isobe] Cluett and Elsie Betts-Vincent.