BRITISH SCHEME.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 307, 28 December 1935, Page 10

BRITISH SCHEME.

LIBRARY OF VOICES.

8.8.C.'s Great Collection of

Records

MAKING DEAD LIVE AGAIN. British Official 'Wireless. (Received 1.30 p.m.) RUGBY, December 27. A review of the year's broadcasting by the British Broadcasting Corporation describes activity in the erection of newtransmitting stations and renovation and re-equipment of the studios to secure a maximum of efficiency.

These improvements Include extensions of the Empire station at Daventry and adaptation of part of Alexandra Palace, North London, for use as a television transmitting station.

The year has seen a steady expansion in the Empire service, constant experimenting having enabled improvements to be effected in the transmissions, so that Empire broadcasts have been better and more consistently received. Empire news bulletins have been increased in number. Notable broadcasts to the Empire include the jubilee celebrations and Earl Jellicoe's funeral.

The review draws attention to the increase in the use of specially recorded material in programmes, notably in illustrating the news bulletins. These records are made by mobile recording units, and special machinery allows events or speeches to be cut and edited for later reproduction. A library of historical 1 interest is thus being built up, and the collection now includes the voices of leaders in every sphere of public life.

Additions are being made of records from the pre-broadcasting era. Thus records of Lloyd George and Winston Churchill made before the war have been secured, and efforts are being made to revive the voices of W. E. Gladstone, the Marquess of Salisbury and the Earl of Rosebery, made on early phonograph cylinders.

It is pointed out. that the value of these records to students of history will steadily increase with the passage of time.