TELEVISION AT CORONATION

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26869, 23 October 1952, Page 9

TELEVISION AT CORONATION

PROTESTS AGAINST BAN (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 22. Protests are mounting against the decision of the Cabinet and the Coronation Commission to ban the televising of the actual crowning of Queen Elizabeth at the altar in Westminster Abbey. The ban means that 12,000,000 viewers will see the coronation procession enter and leave the abbey, but nothing of the actual two-hour ceremony at the altar steps. The “Daily Express” says the ban is illogical, and the “Daily Mirror” says it is unlikely that half-a-dozen really commonplace folk will witness the actual crowning ceremony. The “Evening Standard” says the Coronation Commission is guilty of a serious error of judgment. The Earl Marshall’s office should “take account of the public feeling by speedily reconsidering its misguided edict and reversing it.” There are 1,500,000 television owners in Britain, and this number is expected to be increased to 2,000,000 before the coronation. The 8.8. C. had been prepared to allow cinemas to relay. the television service had the crowning been televised. Television now covers 78 per cent, of Britain, and the 8.8. C. planned to complete national coverage before the coronation. Mine Strike In Rhodesia.—A strike of African mineworkers, which began; yesterday in Northern Rhodesia’s four big copper mines, is costing nearly £230.000 a day in revenue losses. Most of the 37,000 Africans in the mines stopped work when the Northern Rhodesia copper mining companies refused their demands for a general increase of 2s .8d a shift—Lusaka (Northern Rhodesia), October 21.