THE MAGIC SPARK.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 245, 16 October 1925, Page 11

THE MAGIC SPARK.

; BROADCAST AGREEMENT. I IS IT ONE-SIDED ? UNFAIRNESS TO LISTENERS SUGGESTED. (By PHONOS.) There have been suggestions, both in Parliament and in the Press, that the Government has granted to one company a monopoly of radio broadcasting in the Dominion. These suggestions have received an emphatic denial from the Prime Minister and others, and it has been publicly stated that no genuine applications for a broadcasting license would be refused.

At his Mount Albert meeting on Monday night the Postmaster-General (Sir James l'arr) admitted that "for very good reasons"' there had been a refusal of a license to Amalgamated Wireless to broadcast from the Dunedin Exhibition; but he ignored a demand to state those reasons. Whether a virtual monopoly has been given by the Government is seemingly still a debatable point, but the text of the agreement entered into between the Postmaster-General and Messrs. C4oodfellow and Harris, in the opinion of some people, points to the fact that a very one-sided pact has been made, and that the Government, knowingly or otherwise, lias bound down the listening public, who will pay for the cost of broadcast transmission, in a manner that developments in all other countries suggest as most unwise.

There is first a provision that the annual license fee which provides the wherewithal for radio service shall not be reduced for five years. The broadcasting system had not been a year in full swing in Britain ere its popularity was so great that the British company controlling it were able to reduce the annual fee. Recently, too. there had been a reduction in the charge in Australia, where the scheme has been barely two years in operation. If New Zealand experiences a broadcast hoom on a scale similar to that in Britain and Australia there will be more than ample funds to provide the service contemplated locally. Tf the fees cannot be reduced, and so says the signed agreement, then what is to become of the accumulated funds.

Here, from the public point of view, lies the great weakness of the agreement, it provides that the Radio Broadcasting Company of Xew Zealand may not pay dividends exceeding ~i per cent on shares and debentures. So far the big future body of radio listeners is protected. But there is provision by which the company, after providing e,fficient service, may set aside "a reserve fund to meet contingencies of any deacription, or for such other purposes as the company may think fit, or for any one or more of the said purposes, and all such moneys set aside shall be the property of the company." . The company is specifically not limited to a payment of 7A per cent on winding up, and it may wind up at the end , of its fiveyear agreement. Then all its assets must, in terms of the agreement, be taken over by the Government at valuation. Here undoubtedly is the thick end of the stick, and undoubtedly the Government has not got hold of that thick end. At present, operating for much less than a five-year period, the British Broadcasting Company, though it has reduced- license fees, has bisrger surpluses than it can utilise. If similar conditions develop here, and with a wireless boom there is every prospect that they will, the shareholders in the New Zealand company are going to l>e on an excellent wicket at the expense of the listeners. Throughout the Dominion the latter are very sore on the point, and they recognise that, though but little more than three thousand strong at present. theY are the advance guard of a much big<rer body. There is a feeling among them, and this feelins is not confined to Auckland, that broadcasting rights have been bartered away by the Government in private negotiation with the advantage all accruing to the private negotiators.

The l'ostmaster-CJeneral stated at Mount Albert that until the other day the Government could get no one to take up broadcasting as a commercial proposition. A recent manifesto issued by the Wellington Radio Society publicly stated that a company other than the present one were prepared to undertake the work, and that a much better service than the promised one would have been the result. The crux of the whole dissatisfaction lies in the fact that the Government did not publicly ask for competition for supplying a service, and that, now that it has arranged for one, it has clone so secretly in a very onesided agreement. The only amusing feature of the whole procedure is the fact that the listeners' representative for the Dominion, when asking for information , from Sir James Parr at Mount Albert, was accused of conducting a campaign on behalf of Amalgamated Wireless, the firm who have been refused a license at Dunedin. Those who know Mr. Salt's devotion to the interests of radio realise how far from the truth this is.