EMPIRE LINK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 117, 20 May 1933, Page 11

EMPIRE LINK.

BRITISH BROADCASTS.

PROGRAMMES FOR DOMINION.

NEW BLATTNEEPHONE SYSTEM

Air. Malcolm Frost, the British Broadcasting Company representative, who arrived yesterday, went to Rotorua this morning in company with Mr. G. MacNaniara, head of the Post and Telegraph Department. Next week Air. Frost will be in Wellington, where he will place before the Broadcasting Board proposals regarding a regular supply to New Zealand of 8.8.C. programme recordings. The first series of these, produced last year, contains an attractive variety in entertainment, ranging from a children's hour written round the Robin Hood legend, through vaudeville, original musical comedy, old English airs with appropriate settings, biographical plavs, to n&tional pio"Tammes. Skilled professional consti uctive effort is manifest in all of these, which have cost far more to produce than can ever come from their sale.

As Mr. Frost points out, the market for suc'n programmes is decidedly small, bein" confined to a few stations in each of the Dominions. Permission for their use, too, will be definitely restricted, so that there will not be that worn-to-deatli reiteration that lias been the case with ordinary recordings. One of the greatest difficulties in producing these feature items was the variety of interests in copyright and performing rights that had first to be consulted, for rights for reproduction, music, story, artists, and other items are all centred in even one disc.

Sets' of these recorded programmes are now in Wellington, and if the board accepts the very liberal terms under which they can be supplied, through the. 8.8.C.'s genuine desire to give the best of English broadcasting to the rest of the Empire, .then listeners in New Zealand will verv soon hear the best, that over .ten millions in England enjoy nightly. One nftw programme can lie supplied each week. Mr. Frost was asked concerning the possibility or using the Blattnerphone —a system of electrically recording programmes on magnetised steel tape. He pointed out that in its present fltate of development this wonderful appliance is not yet suited for broadcasting reproduction of music. The 8.8.C. uses it for recording and reproducing on the Empire short-wave service sporting descriptions and talks, but the limited range of tone frequencies which it was capable of reproducing faithfully rendered its use at this time for vocal and instrumental work unsatisfactory. So far as he was aware no Blattnernhone was yet in use in southern lands, though he understood the Australian Broadcasting Commission was about to experiment with this latest recording device.

Reverting to the difficulties of receiving the Empire short wave service in New Zealand, Air. Frost stated that local tests indicated a change of service hours as the most likely to provide immediate improvement, though the problem of securing reliable reception bristled with far more difficulties than this. The India and South Africa services, still conducted experimentally, were proving entirely satisfactory. More important than serving Australia and New Zealand, which have their own broadcasting systems, the 8.8.C. regarded the provision of adequate programmes for the many British outlying Pacific islands, which wej-e without their own broadcasting. The keeping of them in touch with the entertainment and news of the Homeland was a in which the authorities at Broadcasting House, London, would strain every effort. Mr. Frost will return to Auckland before departing to study reception in Australia.