The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. “Luceo Non Uro" TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1936. Broadcasting And The Future

Southland Times, Issue 23025, 20 October 1936, Page 6

The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. “Luceo Non Uro" TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1936. Broadcasting And The Future

Those who realize the tremendous importance of the radio as an instrument for educating and influencing the public mind will welcome Professor Shelley’s conception of his responsibilities as Director of Broadcasting. In an address at Christchurch which was reported in The Southland Times yesterday Professor Shelley -made it clear that he is not going to let the day-to-day demands of his new position stifle the idealism which he has followed unceasingly in all his’work for education and the arts. “I am not thinking of what casual listeners want to hear in 1936,” he said. “I am thinking of what they will be having in 1945 .... There is no reason why people should not get as much enjoyment out of their radios as they get at present. They can have what they want but they must have the best, so that in time they will be wanting something they did not want yesterday.” His philosophy, then, will be to work towards the day when listeners will want something better from the radio than they want now; and it is a philosophy both sound and enlightened. For too long broadcasting in New Zealand has been merely a matter of business. It has been an efficiently-conducted business and in the last year or two it has shown some enterprise; but it has always lacked the guidance of a man of Professor Shelley’s wide sympathies and wide knowledge of the arts. Listeners need not fear that broadcasting is to become a kind of adult education system, for that is not the desire or the intention of the new director. But he does see his responsibility to them as being something more than the provision of light, entertainment “to fill in the gaps” and form “a background for the noises we make when we eat our soup.” He will take up his new appointment on December 1 with energy and enthusiasm, and listeners as well as the Government should give him fair scope to develop the service as he thinks fit. Listeners, for their part, should not be too eager to criticize and complain; and the Government should have sufficient confidence in the new director to allow him the greatest possible freedom. For it is to be remembered that although Professor Shelley will be named director, the last word in the administration of broadcasting rests with the Minister, Mr Savage, who has taken powers over the system which if they were fully exerted would place it completely in the Government’s hands. The freedom which it gives Professor Shelley will be a fair measure of the Government’s own democratic ideals.