"SEEING" IT OUT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 139, 15 June 1938, Page 10

"SEEING" IT OUT.

BROADCASTING TEST. I I KEEN AUCKLAND LISTENERS.! HOW DESCRIPTION IS DONE. < There are many heavy-eyed Aucklanders to-day. Cricket has murdered sleep. In a Sydney broadcasting studio there is feverish activity. A cricket match played 11.000 miles away is being recreated and a vivid word-picture given to thousands of people in Xew Zealand and Australia. There is a hurried decoding of cables, two scorers keep pace with batsmen and bowlers that they cannot see. Announcers are working in relays and there is a team of experts making curious sounds with curious instruments. And many people say: "Isn't London coming in well to-night!" But it isn't London after all. It i» Sydney. There are many unsettled arguments as to whether all of the comprehensive descriptions and commentaries have come direct from England. So keen lias been the interest in the first Test that hundreds of listeners have taken the fullest advantage of the complete arrangements made by the Australian Broadcasting Commission for the broadcasting of a ball-for-ball description of play, and they have neglected sleep in their eagerness to hear the latest information from Trent Bridge. Whole families, it is reported, have stayed up throughout the night to listen to the broadcasts. In some homes sitting rooms were converted into temporary sleeping quarters for the duration of the match. According to an announcement made by the manager of the Australian Broadcasting ( imimission on the evening prior to the commencement of the Test, the broadcast was known as a "synthetic'' one. So well has it been done, however, that there are many people who affirm very forcibly that the descriptions come direct from a microphone on the cricket field. There are certainly grounds for this illusion, for the realistic "click" of the ball as it is punched to the boundary, followed l»y the perfectly synchronised applause, make it hard to believe that the whole scene has been reconstructed in a Sydney broadcasting studio.

Use of Beam Wireless. I Let us look into the studio during one of these •Synthetic" broadcasts. There J is a huge >taff of announcers and wellknown crieketera engaged in a multi- i plicity of strange tasks. The beam wire- | less between Kngland and Australia has J been cleared for exclusive use. Three | cable messages, in an ingenious code, are flashed out from the ground at Trent Bridge per over. Each is decoded. The scene is visualised not by guesswork, but by a "working model"' of the field of plav. It" Hi adman runs, a little model strides across the Lilliputian pitch. The fieldsmen move across. The bowler walks back behind the crease. On a huge score board full details of the scoring are po>ted. This board is, if anything, more comprehensive than that at the field ' itself. | In the meantime imagination and skill i are being brougLt to bear bv the rewrite man on th<? decoded message. He supplies the colourful detail that his knowledge of the game tells him is correct. The slip is handed to the announcer, and, a few minutes after the actual event ! has taken place, the public learns that Bradman has sent a slow one by Hammond to the boundary. Useful Flowerpot. Tlie crisp '"click" as the bat strikes . the ball is supplied by a flowerpot being tapped by a kettledrum stick. There j are several brands of applause. In earlv j broadcasts this was furnished by "clap-: ping machines." But these have now j been replaced by records, and bv judi- i cious selection there is produced, synchronising with the announcement, a grow- 1 nig volume of applause as the Teams! take the field, cheers as a centurv is I hoisted, or clapping as a brilliant shot is played. A background of voices and *ul>ducd applause is cleverly simulated. A portion of the match* was ac.uallv broadcast direct from Kngland. There were intervals when conditions were suitable, but occurred for the most part after a.m. The well-known commentator Howard Marshall was the principal narrator. j