IN BRIEF

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 47, 25 February 1937, Page 28

IN BRIEF

NOTES FROM NEAR AND FAR

On Monday at 8 p.m. 2YA will rebroadcast from the League of Nations shortwave station at Geneva a dialogue between the Hon. Walter Nash and Mr. W. J. Jordan, High Commissioner for New Zealand. •

. Monday is' St. David's Day, the National Day of Wales. Appropriate reference to the occasion will be found in the YA programmes. From IYA at 9.30 the 8.8.C. recorded programme, "The Royal National Eistoddfod' of Wales, 1936" will be broadcast. 2YA will present, at 9.15, a continuity programme, "The Land of the Singing Sword," the narrator being Mr. J. Morgan Davies. Appropriate musical numbers will be included in 3YA's ' programme, and at 8.37 Mr. J. G. Parry will speak on "St. David's Day." The following plays are included in next week's programmes from the YA stations: —"Alibi From the Air," from 3YA, on Sunday at 9:5 p.m.; "Roundabouts," from'2YA on Wednesday at 9.15; and the first instalment of the serial drama "Richelieu—Cardinal or King?" from 2YA on Friday at 8.6 p.m.

For some time the Australian Broadcasting Commission has been investigating the possibilities of beginning its day's brpadcasting earlier than 7 a.m. The Postmaster-General has now agreed that from March 1 2BL Sydney and 3AR Melbourne, also the national stations in other States of the Commonwealth and all associated regional stations will open at 6.30 a.m.

A further step in the development of British television will be the introduction of a van carrying television cameras. By this means it will be possible to televise events outside the present range of Alexandra Palace. It is hoped that it may be possible to feed pictures from the cameras to special cables which can be tapped at various points, and thence to the transmitters. The purpose of this new apparatus is to make outside television broadcasts as practicable as outside sound broadcasts. When the 8.8.C. television service was begun its experimental . nature was repeatedly tressed, but experiments are going on, and, if ..the present rate of progress is maintained, the televising of certain great spectacular events of 1937 should become a certainty.

During 1936 the 8.8.C. issued about 600,000 pamphlets in connection with school broadcasting. This represents an increase of 400,000 in the last two years. This convincing demonstration of the popularity of the pamphlets is all the more remarkable because about 95 per cent, of the booklets were paid for. In addition, 350,000 talks pamphlets and 250,000 pamphlets on the outstanding musical programmes were given away by the 8.8.C. in the last quarter of the year. The circulation of the pamphlets indicates a strong determination on the part of listeners of all ages and of every walk in life to take an active, rather than a passive, interest in broadcasting. An ever-in-creasing number of listeners is finding that, in order to appreciate the talks properly, the pamphlets are a necessity. Already the inquiries for 1937 indicate that the 1936 figures will be greatly exceeded.

In view of- the expressed desire of the Director of Broadcasting to encourage group listening it is interesting to learn that of the strangest listening groups in touch with the 8.8.C. was one formed in 'a famous convict prison to listen to farming talks. The farming talks were chosen not so much because the prisoners were farmers, as because regulations did not allow them to listen to any of the series broadcast after 7.30 p.m. At one local prison in the' north >: official regulations are kinder to listeners, and the prisoners form group's to listen to, and discuss, all the talks intended for discussion groups. Among the 700 listening groups in the country there is one that.meets in the bar parlour of a Devonshire inn, with a woman: as its group leader. There is another nourishing in a mental home, and the Education; Officers of the 8.8.C. were relieved to discover that membership was confined to the institution's staff. A women's group began round the fireside of a new housing estate. The women got their husbands interested, and the group grew until it gave rise to the idea of forming a community association on the estate. This in turn proved so successful that the city fathers decided to follow the idea on other housing estates. Las(< year two summer schools for group leaders, at ■ Edinburgh and Oxford,' were most successful. ! The idea of group listening was started in' England, but has since been taken up by one or two foreign countries. In Sweden listeners have got so enthusiastic that they are willing to listen to a continuous discussion lasting three hours. But that example is not likely to be followed here.