BROADCAST OF SERIALS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 25 October 1940, Page 7

BROADCAST OF SERIALS

QUESTION OF CENSORSHIP EDUCATION BOARD’S REQUEST MINISTER’S REPLY TO REPRESENTATIONS The stricter censorship of serial J matter broadcast from the National stations formed the subject of representations recently made by a I number of Education Boards to the Minister in Charge of BroadcastI ing, the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser. The I Ilawkes Bay Board considered some of the broadcasts unsuitable and the Nelson Board supported the suggested representations. The Minister, in his reply stated : "I appreciate fully the earnest motive of your board in supporting these representations and I can assure you that whatever can reasonably be done in the direction desired will continue to be done by the National Broadcasting Service. As I reminded the Hawkes Bay Education Board, however, the matter of censoring the broadcast programmes of a nature so universally appreciated as serials of the type referred to. is one of great difficulty, and I am informed that any drastic action in the way of eliminating entertainment of this type from the programmes would be likely to cause considerable resentment among the listening public. I am satisfied that careful attention is paid by the Broadcasting Service, in the auditioning of serials, to the need for ensuring that vice is not presented in these serials in an attractive form, and that no serious conflict with decent behaviour is allowed to go unpunished. T may say that many otherwise attractive programmes are rejected by the Broadcasting Service on such grounds as these.

“Your board may rest assured that its representations •will be brought to the notice of the officers concerned in the choice of programmes. At the same time, it is necessary that the service should continue to take into consideration the legitimate taste of all types of listeners. I feel that a solution of the difficulty could largely be helped by parents realising that in the matter of radio programmes, as in all other matters, they have a responsibility in regard to the selection of the most suitable programmes for their children to listen to.”