JAPANESE BROADCASTING.

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXVIII, Issue 3484, 30 August 1937, Page 7

JAPANESE BROADCASTING.

Broadcasting in Japan is controlled by a company similar to the British Broadcasting Company, which has a State monopoly. No advertising on the air is allowed. Subscribers pay about 1/6 a month. Some two million of them hold licences.

About ten million Japanese listen to the programmes, which are transmitted from 31 stations. Short-wave reception is forbidden. China has far fewer listeners, despite her much greater population. An amusing development there is the wandering wireless set, which enterprising entertainers wheel along the street, pausing now and then to switch on while they go round with the hat. China’s dogs have not yet become wireless-minded, and it often happens that the start-up of a noisy broadcast draws an indignant rush of all the lurking hounds in the vicinity, which join in the music with blood-curdling bowls. Many old women, who have still even to hear of the invention of wireless, panic when they hear the voice blare out of the magic box, convinced that it comes from an evil spirit They hurry home and get busy with firecrackers before the domestic shrine, to scare away the demons before they can pursue them into the house.