POPULARITY OF RADIO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20890, 4 June 1931, Page 13

POPULARITY OF RADIO.

GRAND TOTAL OF LISTENERS. RECENT ESTIMATE OF 72,000,000. An authoritative analysis, based largely on official figures, .places the total number of wireless receiving sets now in use at« the astounding figure of 24,000,000 and their value at £200,000,000. Broadcasting estimates agree that a conservative figure would bo three listeners to every set in use, so that on this basis the number of listeners may be taken as 72,000,000. ~ , , These figures enable some idea to be formed of the colossal dimensions reached by the radio industry in something less than 10 years, and expert opinion declares that the peak is still far from having been reached 1 . Evidence of this is found in the decision of the British Radio Manufacturers' Association to make the Olympia Exhibition of September next twice the.size of that of last year. America continues, commercially speaking to be the most important radio country,' absorbing 45 per cent, of the total production. England comes next, Germany third, and France fourth. Approximately 52 per cent, of the sets in use in the United States are electrically operated. European countries, inclusive of the BritisTi Isles, are represented in this analysis by approximately 11,000,000 sets. Licence fees range on the averace from 10s to 90s a set, or. sny, £8.000.000 a year bearing in mind the fact that tne fees'ranee from 15 pence in France to nearly £9 a set in Turkey. The important position occupied by tne United Stales in respect of the wireless industry is not wholly due to its area and population. .For one thing, broadcasting is not a Government monopoly. It is wholly in the hands of private and competitive enterprise. Mr. M. H. A viesworth, the president of the National Broadcasting Companv, announces that his companv alone will spend during this year a sum of nearly £2.500.000 on broadcasting talent, This, he explains, does not mean that artists a ready employed will receive more money individually, hut that a greater array of talent will be marshalled before the microphone.