RADIO CONTROL

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 132, 1 December 1936, Page 10

RADIO CONTROL

DIRECTOR TAKES OVER

RAISING THE STANDARD

NO SUDDEN CHANGE

A broad and brief outline of his policy as Director of Broadcasting in New Zealand was given in an interview today by Professor James Shelley, who today assumed control of the broadcasting service. "I am definitely laying myself out to raise the standard of New Zealand performances, and as far as possible develop our own talent in New Zealand," said Professor Shelley. "I realise that that means employing the best talent we can possibly get from overseas in order to stimulate our own people. But that is a secondary consideration; the primary consideration is our own community. "Listeners arc now, becoming highly critical, and only the best will be considered by them. It would be bad both for the listeners and for art in this country to accept indifferent performances from our own people and to expect the best from strangers and from gramophone records. "Years ago people were quite ready to go to a concert and listen to local artists and applaud them, but that was because they did not have the best performers of the rest of the world at their disposal. Our own artists have to compete with the rest of the world." Professor Shelley said he had plans for raising the standard, but he was unable to say at the moment just what they were. Asked whether he contemplated any immediate reconstruction of present programmes, he said that he contemplated no sudden change. "Naturally," he added, "listeners have become used to certain expectations from the present programmes, and the only way in which I can hope to move is to provide them, as far as possible, with better material, if it is available, along the lines that they are already pledged to. I believe in growth, and not in sudden revolution/*