CAPTURED!

Radio Record, Volume VIII, Issue 28, 18 January 1935, Page 5

CAPTURED!

T= recording of special programmes has become a permanent feature of the B.B.C.’s activities, and New Zealand has, for the past two years, been reaping the benefit of the Corporation's industry. _ Mention of a "‘B.B.C. recorded programme" from the YA stations | is a fairly certain guarantee of a good evening's entertainment, and the fact that this service is likely to be extended is pleasant news. Commenting on recorded programmes, the "Radio Times" (London), says: When first: broadcasting began to gain in stature, to grow from being a toy for the mechanically-minded into the position of a new medium for entertainment and instruction, broadcasters sometimes repined at the impermanence of their achievement, So much imagination, so much research, so much concerted effort spread over weeks or months, and the result launched into the ether to become no more than a memory. Many an author and producer, many a radio actor, has felt that sense of regret when the red light ceased to glow. If that were an inevitable handicap, it would be’ one that broadcasting shared with older arts. A production in the theatre may run for years, but once it has finished it is gone. Duse and Bernhardt are memories _ with Mrs. Siddons and Wdmund Kean. Broadcasting, however, has conquered’ impermanence. It is now possible to reproduce a whole programme as it was broadcast, and this fact leads to interesting possibilities. Recently the members of the Historical Association assembled at Broadcasting House to hear a record of the "Twenty Years Ago". programme that was broadcast on August 4. This programme had unmistakable claims to permanence, and it will have an increasing numiber of successors, It is fortunate that they should not have to vanish into thin air.