No License Fee For N.Z. Listeners...

Radio Record, Volume X, Issue 5, 14 August 1936, Page 5

No License Fee For N.Z.

Listeners...

Suggests

Mason

Warner

Zealand; as they progress you may find yourselves in the happy position of American listeners, with excellent programmes and no license money to pay. I look at it this way: the Government has taken over the entire service as it exists now, and its intentions are to acquire, too, the commercial stations, With the latter broadcasing commercial programmes and the Government collecting the advertis-. ing revenue from them there seems no real reason why this revenue [7 interested in your broadcasting experiments in New

sksuldn’t pay for the whole ser vice-and let the listener off scot free. In America there is no radio license and the Government has no interest in broadcasting beyond the allocating.of wavelengths. But the money paid in taxation by the big broadcasting chains is a handsome source of income to the Government. What about censorship, you ask? There's no need for censorship. If you were an advertiser paying for a programme over the air would you allow shady stuff to be broadcast? Stuff that would not only have the listener reaching for the switch, but would turn him against your product? Of course you wouldn't. Radio and the newspapers work in close co-operation in the Uniced States. My paper, the "Chicago Tribune," controls Station WGN,

one of the most powerful broad- ° casting stations in the Middle West. It has been most fortunate in its choice of talent, too, quite a score of the people introduced to the public by WGN later finding world fame on the air, on the stage and in films. For my part I spend

-several months of the year abroad and then write travel articles for the "Tribune" and give talks over WGN. I'll tell you of a little incident in connection with a series of talks I gave from Chicago last winter, a _ series entitled ‘Men of Bali." When I! was in Sydney a month or so ago | was asked to give .a talk or two from Station 2FC. I thought of my ‘Men of Bali" talks. and proceeded to broadcast them. Later I travelled up to the Solomon Islands and was introduced to a planter there, | noticed he was pretty offhand and I determined to ‘find out why. "You say your name’s Warner," he said at last. "You're, the guy that's been giving these ‘Men of Bali’ talks from Sydney?" I nodded. "Maybe you. know that

another Mason Warner has been giving the same talks from WGN, Chicago," he said, cocking an aggressive eye at me. I nodded again, "And maybe you'd be interested to know that the Chicago speaker and Mason Warner in Sydney are one and the same person," I smiled. He laughed and shook my hand. "Honestly, I thought ‘you were trying to pull a fast one, pinching the Chicago man’s name.and material." ‘ ' +» But E was more interested to

know that this white man in the Solomon Islands had heard me from Chicago. That little micro-

phone carries a whale of a load of responsibility! But giving radio talks is only a fraction of my work, For seven months of the year I’m travelling _ the world picking up stories for . my-paper. ‘Only three American papers send correspondents abroad--the ‘‘New York Times," the "Cincinatti .Times-Star’ and my own. The idea has grown. out of the old automobile pages that all papers used to run. Travel is the world's. fastest-growing industry and live newspapers were not long in realising that the public was anxious to learn where it could go for a week-end, for a fortnight’s vacation, for a month, for a year. And so, instead of telling their readers how they could spend Sundav. the. papers

started advocating trips across the continent to California, to Mexico, to.Florida. .The wanderlust was born and people began to get curious about the West Indies, about Hawaii, about Australia and New Zealand.

-To-day the "Chicago Tribune" runs a weekly travel supplement f anything from four to twelve pages-and it’s one of the most eagerly-read supplements in the paper. I came to New Zealand to write twelve articles, and I've got enough matcrial to write 1200! Your people here are cordial. By that 1 don’t mean. mer- politeness. They seem genuinely glad to. see you; they're anxious to help you in any way they can; and they look genuinely sorry te see you go again. Last week I went to have a look at Wellington’s new National Art Gallery. I was stag-gered-it would do infinite credit to a city of a million people. The Maori section is splendid ~nd the examples of the culture of the peoples of the South Seas must be one of. the finest in the world.

Paul Boesch, popular American wrestler, has written next week S signed article:

Introducing .. .

[fAsoy WARNER, travelling correspondent for the "Chicago Tribune." Mr. Warner. who snent several weeks .inv New

Zealand gathering material for his paper and for radio -talks, has been travelling in the Hast and in the countries bordering the Pacific. for some years. He sailed. from Wellington by the Maunganui for San Francisco last week. The article on this page

8 specialiy written for the -wadio, Te- "