EARLY RADIO

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 29, 3 August 1939, Page 26

EARLY RADIO

CONTRAST WITH TODAY

. "Perhaps no generation that ever lived has seen such tremendous changes and advances made in its general living conditions as that of the precent day," said Mr. S. C. Asquith, in an address to the Wellington Advertising Club last week, taking as his subject the advances made, in radio during the past few years. Mr. Asquith described the tremendous organisation that had grown up behind the scenes in broadcasting, and gave his listeners some idea of the comparison that existed between present day methods of presentation and those of a few years ago.

"In those early days," continued the speaker, "quite a thrill ran round the household when, from the horn-shaped loud-speaker attached to the big box containing many wires, the far away sound of a

voice could be heard. Oftentimes, enthusiastic members of the family would sit up well into the early hours of the morning striving to locate one of the very few broadcasting stations on the air at that time, and exciting indeed, was the possibility of picking up some overseas station, whether the language of the announcer could be understood or not."

Mr. Asquith pointed out that whereas previously perhaps three or four individuals were all that were necessary to run a broadcasting station of thoso years, today, some of our modern transmitting centres employ anything from 50 to 200 employees to -provide up-to-the-minute entertainment for listeners.

The speaker outlined research that had been conducted into tne varioustypes of listening audiences at certain times of the day, and dealt at some length with the different type of appeal that was' used for each of these sessions.