GENERALLY UNSUITABLE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 13 September 1941, Page 5

GENERALLY UNSUITABLE

AUSTRALIANS AS RADIO j ANNOUNCERS VIEW OF COMMISSION CHAIRMAN Sydney, Sept. 11 1 Australians generally are unsuitable as radio announcers declared the 1 chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Commission. Mr W. J. Cleary 1 when giving evidence before the Gov- ‘ •rnment commission on broadcasting. ‘ He pointed out that from 450 appli- 1 cants given auditions three months ago \ only two could be selected as possible i announcers. Australian speech was slightly ob-1 jectionable because of its monotony and vowel distortion, due to a tendency to speak with the lips and teeth closer, | which radio experts called lip lflzi - ! »-ess. This made first-class ventrilo- i quists. but that was all. js Mr Cleary.added that every quest 5 for announcers had revealed that the c men most suitable were Englishmen. s v RETORT TO MR CLEARY s Sydney, Sept. 12. "Some of the best radio announcers s come from Australians employed on commercial stations,” declared the! 1 secretary of the Actors’ Equity Asso- ! ciation, Mr Hal Alexander, to-day j ' when replying to the evidence of the 1 chairman of the Australian Broadcast-i c ing Commission. Mr W. J. Cleary. Mr Alexander quoted the names of J v 12 well-known Australian r.nnouncers * on Sydney and Melbourne commercial c broadcasting stations, and said that r these were either Australian or New Zealand men whose reputation was well above those of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, with one ° exception. Mr Alexander asked why ® Australia should want other than Aus- c tralian voices on the air, any more than the Canadian broadcasting sta- v lions wanted other than Canadian a voices. The same, lie said, applied to American stations. k Radio announcers were chosen by b the commercial stations here because d they were good examples of the type a i sneech employed by Australians and jit not because of their allegiance to the j a old school tie, as Mr Clearv would l b have it —U.P.A. lo