THE BOARD"S POLICY

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 95, 19 October 1933, Page 23

THE BOARD"S POLICY

ARE PROGRAMMES DIRECTED?

The general manager of tho Broadcasting Board, Mr. E. Ci Hands, returned a few days ago from a visit to, Australia, where he inspected the new studios at the Australian Broadcasting Commission Js Newcastle station. He had not much to say to interviewers when he returned, and made no such comments as Mr. John Bishop did upon the fino programme policy of the Australian Commission. Mr. Bishop said that it seemed to him that one of the reasons for tho groat success of the A.B.C.'s work was that it had in its organisation men who had proved themselves in their own particular artistic worlds. For instance, the controller of programmes in Melbourne was AVilliam James, a man who had had great experience in London as an accompanist and pianist, and also in Melbourne as pianist, teacher, and conductor. With, such men organising the artistic forces of the great studios of Sydney and Melbourne, it was no wonder that .. the "work soared above just amateurism. It was really a relief to find that so much of tho programme work of the Australian studios was. not based on gramophone records. Local talent at the studios was collected, -organised, and inspired, and already remarkably fine result had been shown. ■ Now the ■ old Broadcasting Company and the present Broadcasting Board have declared, and with, truth, that the amount of musical talent in New Zealand is insufficient to maintain broadcasting programmes at a high artistic level. The company therefore iised a great deal of gramophone music. The board, by weeding out the incompetent amateur, "has been forced to use records still more, and the level of performing excellence has thus undoubtr edly been Taised. But it has not succeeded in making the listeners realise this. It has been stated that the board has a library of 37,000 records. Now this is a large-enough library to enable 2YA to broadcast records and nothing else for over eight "hours a day without a repetition for two years. The wearisome familiarity of a great number of the records we hear suggests that some tons of these records are never used. Admittedly many of them never should be. The board has now been in charge of broadcasting for nearly two years. It was created as the result of a vigorous campaign largely based on tho belief that a body, modelled on the lines of the 8.8.C. would endeavour to carry out, in some measure, the ideals of the 8.8.C. Has the board even begun to do this? It may be held that_ it has been much .occupied with the improvement and replacement of its equipment and that this has been a burden upon its finances; but this has nothing whatever to,.do1 with its programme ideals. It is the firm belief of many listeners that the board is in_ grave need of a form of musical direction which it has never hacl —one that Mali utilise the available material to the best possible effect, and put broadcasting 'in New Zealand upon a higher leveL "Th« Post" has received innumerable letters and verbal comments on this matter, showing that there is a genuine desire to have the broadcast programmes depart from their stereotyped lack of form,' to use an expressive contradiction in terms. In the past few days a listener wrote commenting in warm praise upon a programme which was given by a station outside the board's control. He conclttcled: —"My chief appreciation lies in the fact that we have here a sincere effort to produce a programme coherent in style and pf quite good standard. No doubt most listeners-in appreciate this intelligent kind of construction and the materials used in the same, and -would prefer it to the mixture of yowlings, yodellings,' pot-pourris, and paltryness that the vexed ether has at times to convey."