Broadcasting And The Minorities

Radio Record, 10 June 1938, Page 12

Broadcasting And The Minorities

Problems of Radto Organisation In Disturbea C vechoslovakia Written for the "Record"

by

CECIL W.

LUSTY

ROSZE PANA, you cannot cross the Tatra mountains into Czechoslovakia," | was told by a wayside acquaintance at Zakopane in the Polish Carpathians. He spoke, somewhat vaguely, of Polish minority "trouble," of likely fighting and a closed frontier. I sought confirmation from my Polish host. "Prosze Pana’-your Pole always introduces his remarks with that "if-you-please-sir" idiom-he replied, "the frontier is open. With periodical minority friction, the Zakopane peasantry live in a state of panic. They but need to hear a ‘bang’ to rush to withdraw bank savings, talking wildly of frontier lighting." That blessed word "minority !"’ ] read again my iuvitation from a Hungarian fumily in Velka Ida, near Kosice, Eastern . Slovakia, which bad prompted my inquiry about tke, Carpathian route. The lattar montioned "another visit" by the Czeeh seeret police 66 =

in search of "incriminating documents" und the "indignities suffered by ihe Ifungarian minority." A. week previously, iu Warsuw, I bad heard of petty disturbauces iu the German mii orities in both Poland aud Gzecboslovakia, und of irritating boycotts by the Silesian and Sudeteu Germans of. Done German traders. a . The Carpathian — fruntier, ux it lappened, ‘Was closed--not by riftes, but-by impassable roads-nid my entry’ into

Czechoslovakia took tle mo08re . urthodox form of tte Warsaw Prague CX PIess. QUTICIALS at the ‘Prague Leadquarters of Rudio-Journal . +the "Ozechoslovakian Broadcasting Corporationcourteously initiated me into the ABO of Czeeh broadcasting. Radio-Journul, [ lee arned, is a. private corporation eudowed by the State since 192: 3, and it has the exclusive right-to broadéast in Czechoslovakia. The ‘tate, however, reserves 51 per cent. of the capital fund and has a majority representation on the directorate, Rtadio-Journal is responsible -only for programmes ; the provision of stations und technical wuintenance is tlhe care of the State, ‘The national transmitters are in Prague and the priu-

cipal regional transmitters in Brno, Moravia; Bratislava, Slovakia; Kosice, Eastern Slovakia; and Moravska Ostrava, North-eastern Moravia, Prague has also short-wave stations well-known to New Zealand listeners. Special staffs, some of which form an integral part,of Radio-Journal and some of which are more or less independent, deal

with programme coustruction. In the first category belong broadcasting in the languages of the national uinorities aud school bhroad‘asting; in the second are news bulletins and farmers’ and workers’ transmissions, Special provision, J found, ix made for the miuorities. As early as 1925 special hour: were reserved .- for German broudeasts, aud in 19384 similar arrangements were made for broadeastine in ° Hupnpaat

. . gaurian. lu 1984, also, regular broadéasts in the’ local Ukrainian dialect, designed for the Carpathian Ruthenian minority, were organised at the Kosice station, , SCHOOL broadcasts, inaugurated in 1980, are presented several times weekly in separate transmissions for the three age groups into which the elementary school children are divided. Attention is paid to actualities as well as to cultivation of literary und musieal tastes. There are special regular broadcasts for children ir the German, Hungarian gud other minority schools. News bulletins are given several times daily and are prepared: Tidependenthy of Radio Journal, by the Czechoslovuk Press Bureau, un cticial (Continued on page +43.)

[RADIO problems in New Zealand pale into insignificance when compared with the difficulties that beset the people who control broadcasting in Czechosloyekia. in this article Cecil W. Lusty describes radio organisation in the country at present so much in the news, ond touches on the relation between radio and the minority problem. ©

Czechoslovak Radio

(Continued from page 12.) agency. They are transmitted also in the tongues of the national minorities. Farmers’ and workers’ broadcasts are likewise compiled independently of the broadcasting corporation. ‘The underlying idea, I was:-informed, is that the interests and needs of these two most numerous social groups require special attention by a specialised programme staff, OTH men: and. women comprise the announcing staff and there is a woman technician in the control room. For horse-racing, football, motor racing and other sports, Radio-Journal has special announcers, and a small fleet of specially-equipped motor-vans is used for "outside broadcasts." I was shown ayer the ten studios at Prague’s Broadcasting House, The largest is noteworthy -for its organ, built specially for the studio. Its Czech designer also. built broadcasting organs for Rome and Stockholm. The Prague organ has a special register for Bach’s compositions. Throughout post-war Europe IT had heard much of minority problems and the propaganda side of radio, It is one of the weaknesses of State or semiState conducted broadcasting ‘in Furope that radio tends to become a medium for expressing "nationality" and "self-determination"-to clothe the uglier word of propaganda-as opposed to broadcastiig in its generally aecep- ted sense of cultural entertainment. One cannot eseape the political aspect of European radio. Thus in Vienna I was informed, in official quarters, that the high-powered Bisamberg transmitter was constructed largely to combat Nazi propaganda. The ‘Ides of March" have closed that chapterand in Budapest, Bucharest and elsewhere [| found evidence of the relation between radio and: minorities. (\ZECHOSLOVAKIA, too, I discov"ered, was faced with. this problem of foreign transmissions, which, the Czechs alleged, created unrest in the minorities in Czechoslovakia. The Czechs, I was told, were forced to protect themselves from this ether invasion. To quote one case in point: While I was in Prague Radio-Journal was planning a station at Banska Bystrica, Slovakia. An important obhjective of the new directional beam transmitter, [ was informed, was to combat transmissions allegedly causing unrest in the Hungarian minorities from the giant Budapest station, Who, indeed, would like to control the broadcasting of the small, artificially constructed nation, in a Kuropean atmosphere charged with violent prepaganda +