NEXT WEEK'S FARE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20074, 11 October 1928, Page 6

NEXT WEEK'S FARE.

"MADAME BUTTERFLY" AT IYA

The following are features in the programmes from IYA next week:— Sunday.—Relay from St. James* Presbyterian Church; relay of Municipal Band. . Tuesday.—Excerpts frbrn "Madame Butterfly " by Madame. Alnsley's party; orchestra. , ' Wednesday.—llelay of Municipal Band. • Thursday.—Savoy Octette; instrumental trio. it Friday.—St. Andrew s Quartette; sketch, " A True Test," by the Auckland Comedy Players; orchestra. Saturday.—lnstrumental trio; dance music. „ Sunday.—Relay from Pitt Street Methodist Church; relay of municipal organ recital. A song-cycle, " Wind-flowers " (Somervell), will be given at 2YA, Wellington, on Tuesday by the Orpheus Quartette. Another, " The Daisy Chain " Lehmann), will be presented at 3YA, Christchurcii, on Thursday under the direction of Madame Gower-Burns. Ihe Island Bay Methodist Choir, winners of the recent Wellington choir contest, will sing at 2YA next Sunday evening. The second >part of "La Traviata will be performed at 3LO, Melbourne, on day. The programme will also include favourite old German waltzes by the station orchestra. The one-act play, The Stepmother," by Arnold Bennett, will be given on Tuesday and the vocal numbers from " The Geisha " on Wednesday. The election speech of the Commonwealth Prime Minister, Mr. Bruce, at Brisbane, will be relayed by 4QG on Monday, and addresses at a Parlianiftntarj banquet to the British Economic Mission on Saturday.

THE LICENCE FIGURES. MORE POWER FOR IYA. Although summer, with its poorer reception conditions, is approaching, listeners' licences increased by nearly 1500 last month, and are now only 780 fewer than at the end of the last licence-year. Wellington, like Otago, has now caught up and passed its last year's total. Detailed returns at August 31 are: DefiMarch 31. Auff. 31. ciency. Auckland . . 14,127 J3.194 933 Wellington . • 15.197 15,..86 89 Canterbury .. 7.870 7 743 227 Otago ".. .. 2,317 2,608 291* Totals • .. 39,611 38,831 780 •Increase. All classes of wireless licences, including dealers' and transmitters', now exceed 40,000. The Wellington increase may be accounted for in part by the greater range of station 2YA for crystal reception, which should be extremely good over the whole area of Greater Wellington. It would be interesting to know what proportion of the total number of licences were taken out for crystal sets. If this were made public a good deal of light might be thrown on the slump last April. The high power of 2YA has been of much less value for distant reception in the Dominion than was expected before the plant was put in, but it is undoubtedly of value to users of crystal sets. Auckland is a larger city than Wellington, and the broadcasting company may yet find it worth while to increase the power of IYA in order that people in the outer suburbs may have crystal reception at good volume without the need for putting up aerials some 30ft. in height. Their money is worth just as much to the company as that of others with large valve sets.

By catering specially for folk with small means and no technical interest in wireless, it may be possible to enrol as listeners many who will never otherwise be reached. This is the policy which has made broadcasting in Japan what it is to-day. The rank and file of Japanese people cannot afford valve sets, but through the erection of a whole series of high-powered stations listeners are now numbored in hundreds of thousands.

MUSIC COPYRIGHT. NEW ZEALAND DISPUTE. The sequence of events which caused the Government to pass special legislation regulating the sums payable by the Broadcasting Company in music copyright fees is recounted at great length in the current issue of the company's official organ, the Radio Record.

The history, evidently prepared by the legal advisers of the company, is almost too complicated for the ordinary reader to absorb at one sitting, but the chief contentions are as follows:

When the company made its agreement with the Government the question of copyright was not raised. It had not then, in fact, been raised in regard to broadcasting anywhere in the world. Almost as soon as broadcasting commenced, the company was threatened with an injunction by a body called the Musical Copyright Broadcasting Administration, which claimed rights in respect of 99 per cent, of the world's copyright musical works. In the then condition of the law, the company found itself compelled to make an agreement with tho Australasian Performing Rights Association, which had succeeded tho other body, in August, 1926, to pay tho fees which the association demanded, namely, 4 per cent, of its gross revenue from tho first 10,000 licences, and 8 per cent, thereafter, plus a 10 per cent, increase for every 1500 items above a certain number.

Tho agreement was for one year, and provided that the association must furnish lists of works it wished to have withheld from performance, not oxceeding 5 per cent, of its total, and of non-copyright works. These requirements, the company says, wero not fulfilled, and difficulties arose in negotiations for a renewal in August of last year. The association then demanded 6 per cent, of the gross revenue, with an increase of 10 per cent, in respect of every 15,000 itoms used or repeated, in excess of tho first 45,000.

In arid after February last the company withheld all payments for copyright, holding that the association had not supplied tho information agreed upon. The association accordingly took steps to apply to the Supreme Court for an injunction restraining tho company from broadcasting music over which copyright was claimed. This was set down for hearing on October 9, and if granted would have compelled tho company to close its stations. Hence the Government's intervention.

It appears that the bill just passed is provisional because tho Government is awaiting the report of-Mr. S. G. Raymond, K.C., New Zealand delegate to the International Copyright Convention, held at Rome in May and June last, at which tho whole question was discussed. Mr. Raymond is now on his way back to New Zealand. It is understood that the convention agreed that tho rights of authors to payment for tho use of their works in broadcasting should be preserved, but that it should be for the national legislatures of all countries in tho Copyright Union to detormine how that right, should be exercised.

Tho company quotes tho recent report of tho Australian Royal Commission on wireless, which held that tho proportion of licence-fees received by the Performing Rights Association was out of proportion to the service rendered or value given, being more than double tho proportion paid in Britain. The commission recommended, intor-alia, that stations receiving licencefees should pay not more than 5 per cent, of their gross rovenuo for copyright, and that other stations should pay 4d in respect of musical item performed