RADIO STANDARDS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25798, 20 March 1945, Page 7

RADIO STANDARDS

Sir,—lf there was ever a case lor some [omi 01 intellectual dictatorship, surely we have it in the radio entertainment which is such a distressing commentary on the growing decay of our times, i am quite aware that provocative opinion win incur the noisy resentment of that moronic element which a timorous State leartully regards as " vox populi.” its ; inemoers will counter with the rather ob- ! \ ions advice Ihat if 1 do not like the tare winch wc receive I know what to 1 cio. No one could argue against the axiom ' mat one man s meat is another man s poison. "Dc gustibus non cst disi putancium." Hut mis problem cannot be ’ dismissed as summarily as that. Its most i disturbing cited ties ni its inlection ot our ! youth. Adults can. of course, accept or i reject the programmes that aic persisicnlly indicted on them, according to i their level of appreciation. But our I voting people are spoon-ltd on them, as I on some dogmatic and infallible faith, and ! accept them as gospel. Much of what ! they hear is rubbish—rubbish preceded, 1 interspersed and followed with stern or plavlul injunctions to consume with all I haste potent cures for a thousand and one ills itadio. with its enormous potentialiiies lor cultural advancement, has bei come an opiale, an instrument for inteli leclual subversion. Children listen with I rapt attention to cheap stories of crime I and romance. Is there not the material I in our English libraries, old and new, to provide a healthy excitement ol interest I j Apparently we must accept our diversions i ready made from overseas. .... . ; Our American friends are fully entitled ; naturally to hear what they wish, and m ’ their own idiom, but it is not our i ai?m. What is wrong with the King s English, which we in New Zealand once spoke I with more purity than do the Briton.-, 1 ihemgelves? Are wc ashamed of it, that I we have to cultivate an alien slang? And, I apart from this pollution of the an m 1 material, we have announcers playing ; down to their lowest audiences. From carlv morning, when these patronising -individuals infest the etr.er with then j weak witticisms and fake hcartiness vv 'hoar our language abusea and a foteign I one sedulous!v aped. For the most arresti ing demonstration of radio cnuncmUom I we turn, for comic reliel, to a station ! with its serried ranks of eager announcets, I ranging in weird variety from the tremu- ! ious R tiro to the richly pontMcal person who transports us. witn nian> la - phrases. to "Ahndy s Dahncc. To pi tit hinntlv there are too man> ustencis to-dav 'not. capable °C forming a sensible ! he done by someone competent J,.;” 1 ' j Dunedin, March 17.