EXPENDITURE ON BROADCASTING

Southland Times, Issue 23376, 7 December 1937, Page 8

EXPENDITURE ON BROADCASTING

COST OF COMMERCIAL SERVICE SUPPLEMENTARY VOTE SOUGHT (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, December 6. The extent to which expenditure is being incurred in the establishment of the commercial broadcasting in the four main centres of the Dominion is illustrated in the latest figures for the Broadcasting Account which are included in the Supplementary Estimates presented in the House of Representatives today. The total supplementary vote for broadcasting is £18,915 and of this sum, £15,710 directly concerns the Commercial Broadcasting Service. Individual items in the estimates of the account provide for the payment of £2205 to cover increases in salaries caused by the regrading of officers presumably in both divisions of the service. In the main Broadcasting Account the only sum provided is £l'l9o covering three miscellaneous votes. Estimates of the Commercial Broadcasting Account are much more extensive. There is an item of £2OOO for additional staff and additional salary increases, an allowance of £5O to an officer while he was undertaking the combined duties of director of IZB and secretary to the department, an additional £250 for advertising and publications, additional sums of £l5O for insurance, £250 for legal and audit charges, £6lOO for office and studio equipment, fittings, and requisites, £23 for the opening expenses of the new stations, £2OO for postages and telegrams, £4OO for telephone services, £lOO for travelling allowances and transfer expenses, £5200 for the purchase of land for transmitter sites at Auckland and Dunedin together with additional technical equipment, £5OO for office and studio expenses, z and £145 as the balance of the purchase money for Station IZB. In the main estimates an expenditure of £233,933 was forecast for the National Broadcasting Service, including £48,200 for salaries, while £120,643 was provided for the Commercial Service, including £49,943 for salaries.