TELEVISION IN AUSTRALIA

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27040, 15 May 1953, Page 11

TELEVISION IN AUSTRALIA

A.B.C. MEMBER SEEKS DELAY (NX Press Association— Copyright)

MELBOURNE, May 13. Television is not yet an essential amenity of life and should not be introduced for some years, Sir John Medley told the Television Royal Commission today. Sir John Medley is a member of the Australian Broadcasting Commission and a former Vice-Chancellor of Melbourne University?" His reasons tor proposing X delay in the introduction of television were: (1) Television should not take precedence over insufficient housing, inadequate school building, urgent developmental works-and starving universities fa the expenditure of public funds. (2) He did not believe that Australia could afford to tie up peopliT of high technical qualifications in television at the present stage of the country’s development. He said that when television was introduced, it should have a national programme financed from public funds and controlled as the Australian Broadcasting Commission is controlled, t. He thought private enterprise should participate in the development of television, but the approach should be a cautious one. In introducing television, it was Australia’s job to find a satisfactory middle course between American television, which was too uninhibited, and British television, whch was perhaps too cautious and restrained.