Japanese Pay 7d.

Radio Record, Volume VII, Issue 46, 24 May 1935, Page 6

Japanese Pay 7d.

TT CLL ee Sg OYER a tiny bowl of Japanese tea aboard H.1.J.MS. Yakumo at Wellington last week, a "Radio Record" representative learned a lot about broadcasting in Japan, particularly as it compares. with New Zealand. So he has .decided to stay in the Dominion.

OULD you like to live in a country where you could buy a good 4-valve receiving set for £1, and listen-in for a licence fee of 7d. a month? Would I!" you say. But wait. There’s a catch in it here and there. You are used to- paying your £12 or £15 for a 5-valve and 25/to hear New Zealand’s national broade¢asts. Just read ou and see whether you feel the same about it all when you've finished. First of all, here is a sample of a complete day’s programme from any of the 30 Japanese national stations :- 6.30 a.m.:.Musie for physical exercises for 15 minutes. 7.0: Weather reports for all districts, with particular information for shipping and fishermen. 17.50: Ditto. 7.51: Music for more physical jerks for 15 minutes. 8.30: Weather reports. 9.0: Ditto. 9.10-9.25: Cooking and household session. 9.30-9.55: Music for children. 10.0-10.30: Lecture for adults. 10.40-11.5: Lecture for "common sense" (as my source of information put it)-cultural session. 11.10 (Sundays only) : Musie. 12.0: Time signal. 12.5--12.35: Musie. 12.40-12.55: News. 12,55: Lecture from Manchukuo (relayed, telling the old folks at home how the boys are doing "over there"). 1.20: Music for two hours. 3.40: Weather reports. 3.50: Economic conditions. 4.0-4,20: News. 6.0-6.20: Children’s session. 6.25: Manufacturing and industrial news. 7.0: News. 7.30: Lecture. 7.55-9.30: "Enjoyment" (the polite Japanese term for the evening session, which includes Japanese and European music, theatre music relays, radio drama and humour), 9.30: Time signal and news. . . 9.40: "Historical Matter of To-morrow." (I haven’t puzzled that one out myself yet.) Weather reports. 10.0 (approx.) : Close down. What do you think of that? Yerhaps the outstanding

feature of the day’s broadcasts is their concern about the weather, and T gathered that in Japan the people can understand the weather reports-a delightful land, where a thunderstorm is'a thunderstorm, not a "deep depression with low barometric pressure and colder temperatures und humid conditions accompanied by electrical disturbance and heavy rain, with an anti-cyclone complex moving eastward across the China Sea, .. ." } Then there are the periodical shujdowns which in New Zealaud would take lot of getting used to. Japan’s stations apparently start and stop about eight times a day! hey are entitled to the palm, however, for their improvement on the Dominion’s monotonous method for transwitting time signals. Half a minute be-

fore noon each day the stations broadcast a piano playing some well-known tune, the last note of which is struck on the tick of 12 o’clock. In a small country in comparison with its big population, there should certainly be plenty of news, and the broadcasting treats this generously. But it would be difficult for the average New Zealander to accustom himself to so many talks und lectures-culture (the "common sense" item), economics, politics, industry and manufactures. These features are a compliment to the interest of the Japanese in the more serious side of their national life-rather .. bore to most of us. Hach station has a different programme, but all are built round the same pattern. Variations of the Tokio station’s broadeasts are made according to convenient relays of sports meetings and other functions, and the inclusion of gramophone recordings and special industrial lectures. Two wavelengths are used simultaneously by each station. JOAK, for instance, uses 870 k.c. and 590 k.c.-"JO" is the prefix of the individual call signs of all Japanese national broadcasting stations, just as "Y" indicates a New Zealand national. No advertising is allowed over the air in Japan, and no "RB" class stations operate. ‘Hence the license fee which although 1/- a month at present, is shortly to be reduced to Td. The concert sessions are supplied by artists and recordings, with a mixture of European and Japanese music, and well-known artists visiting the country are frequently beard in broadcasts, With 10 or 11 hours of music a day from each YA: station in New Zealand-exclusive of the programmes from the alternative stations each evening-you might well look askance at the Japanese daily schedule. Yet even in Japan complaints are received about the type of music broadcast. Some want more Japanese music; some want more Western compositions; some, more. jazz, and others-as in New Zea- | land-don’t know what they want. Announcers, however, are not there made the targets for! unbridled criticism. I gathered that the Japanese standard of announcing was uniformly high, and these officials may, and do, introduce some humour into their work as a matter of course. The patient victim of this interview rather missed the point when I asked him whether their announcers