BROADCASTING CONTROL

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 45, 21 August 1931, Page 8

BROADCASTING CONTROL

(To the Editor.)

• ' ,Bir,— l do not propose to enter into a ■. wfwspaper argument.' My letter, which ■ jrpU were good enough to publish, was i 'written in good faith, merely to set out | for the consideration of your readers facts i .which I believe to be unanswerable. ,In : your issue of this evening "D.8." imputes ■ate' sincerity and-questions the accuracy • i^ol my facts, and claims to do so dis;>,passionately. In this, my final word on | 'the subject; I am-content to propound a »-?few questions and to leave it to the coml .monsense of a fair-minded community to ' r decide between us. ■ ' !' Is it dispassionate and reasonable to [ suggest that 60,000 people buy receiving t. set's and pay licence fees to provide them**«elves with an unsatisfactory broadcast:^jjig service, and, if it is not, is riot the .sl?jge ?nd growing number of licensed 'iiwteners definite proof of the popularity ■fxpi the service? ;£■ Is it not a fact that if any change is |_made in the system of control the Gov.g«rnnient will have to provide the money i-;€&. buy the company's plant and equip-!.-Bient, and to provide for the development i -'•"•of the service? According to published ' 'figures the aggregate cost of this will be ■ not less than £100,000. Is it dispassion- : i\K. anS leasonable to suggest that this tvt^i fy) (Jpn9 without cost to the country wT^Mttin^agaHH* * th* £15,000 loaned

to the company (on which the Government receives interest) and whatever money belonging to the company may now be held by the Government? To prove to the contrary, one has only to note the fact that the credit balance shown after five years' operation is £188 3s sd! Presumably the company's money held by the Government is collected licence fees required to meet the costs of the service, 30 that excluding the £15,000 loan there must be a balance of £85,000 to be found, la this the time to find it? And if it is such an easy matter for the Government to.finance a thing of this kind, why is it finding it impossible to "finance" for unemployment without raiding the wages of the. workers? . . ■ ■

As to the contention of other writers that the broadcasting service should be removed from the sphere of "business" in a .profit-making sense, on the ground that it is a public utility, what, for instance, of the Wellington-Lyttelton ferry service? Here is a public utility if ever there was one, yet will anyone say that a Government or a corporation could run that service as efficiently and successfully as it is being, run by private enterprise? How. comes it that certain gentlemen who are now. so insistent that the broadcast service should not be run by private enter-' prise have been content for years to allow the ferry service—one.of the best Bervices of its kind in the world—to be so run?—l am, etc., ■•-.- ; ;■ .. • . •:■ E.A.S. . 20th August, (To the Editor.) Sir,—Radio listeners-in are indebted to "The Evening Post" for bringing so prominently under notice the necessity for some new method of control of the broadcasting in New Zealand. It cannot be said that the present services of the Radio Broadcasting Company are giving an adequate return for the fees paid or that the class of entertainment provided is what the average listener is entitled to expect. ■- '■

The position as it appears to me is that the.existing company has been given cer--tain monopoly: rights, by the Government under a licence which is now about to expire, and is primarily in existence for the'making of profits. It is true that the rate of interest to be paid to debenture holders is limited to 7% per cent., but as the company is entitled to create reserves which are their sole property, and are to be distributed to the debenture holders on winding up, it is futile to suggest that there is in fact any limitation of the amount of profits to be ultimately derived by them. The maintenance of ■, the plant and equipment in a high state of efficiency out of revenue, the creation of a depreciation fund and of a sinking fund as well as power to create general reserves has the effect of bolstering up the position of the company in the event of winding up, and this at the expense of the payers of fees. So long as the company is permitted to carry on under these conditions the .more entrenched it becomes.

After all, the revenue is contributed by the listeners-in, and any profits made should •be devoted to the improvement of services to them; otherwise the-public pays and. gets only what, the company chooses to give them. ■ The only form of control: which will improve the service and raise its standard is that along the lines of the. British Broadcasting Company's, organisation as outlined in "The Post", with a .properly constituted representative board of control, compulsory Government audit, the publication of annual accounts, and a statutory: obligation to utilise profits in the improvement of the service to the public.—l am, etc.,

ANOTHER LISTENER-IN.