PERSONALITY AND RADIO.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 76, 30 March 1935, Page 14

PERSONALITY AND RADIO.

I have no intention whatever of entering into a controversy with Mr. H. B. Ai thur, but I would like to point out that he apparently does not differentiate between individuality and personality. '1 here is no objection whatever to an announcer having his own individual style, but for him to establish a definite personality is without doubt detrimental to radio. If Mr. Arthur will listen to such stations as GSB, FYA, and, in iact, any of the big overseas stations, ho will find that the announcements from these stations are definitely stereotyped. The announcement is made in the same words in the same way day in and day out. If Mr. Arthur were in touch with the radio business as closely as I am he would know that the very station directors who some years ago were busy building the personality of their announcers arc to-day just as busy tearing down that edifice. Does Mr. Arthur realise that when the plebiscite was taken among listeners two years a"-o almost 00 per cent declared in favour of listening to the YA stations, and undoubtedly the v YA programmes to-day are 100 per cent better than they were two years ago? Does Mr. Arthur know that the two towns in New Zealand with the greatest number of B stations have the fewest radio sets per head of population? Docs this support the contention that B stations build listeners? One of the towns is Auckland. There are many reasons that can be advanced to account for this in this city, but unfortunately for these arguments the other town is Dunedin, to which conditions they definitely will not apply. The only assumption then is that B stations are detrimental to licenses. The parallel drawn between Sydney and New Zealand does not really appiy, for the conditions in the two countries are totally different. The New Zealand listeners arc not taxed without representation. They have their members of Parliament, and even these gentlemen were hard put to it to find any argument in support of the B stations. It would be next door to impossible for listeners in New Zealand to elect by franchise representatives for the board. At least one membre of the late advisory committee was clected by approximately CO people, some at least of whom were not listeners. S.W. LISTENER,