OPINIONS SOUGHT

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIII, Issue 22474, 8 January 1943, Page 4

OPINIONS SOUGHT

British Broadcasting Corporation Report On Reaction To Programmes (N.Z.P.A.) WELLINGTON. Jan. 6. “I’m not here to tell people about the 8.8. C., but to get people to tell me what they think about it,” said Mr N. C. Tritton, who has come from the London offices of the 8.8. C. to inquire into the reactions to its programme, assess the public taste in New Zealand and ascertain whether anything can be done to improve the 8.8. C. services to this country. An Australian, Mr Tritton was private secretary to the former Prime Minister (Mr R. G. Menzies) when the latter went to London about two years ago. Mr Tritton remained as an official of the Pacific service of the 8.8. C. He said to-day that broadcasting was very expensive to the British taxpayer and in these days of difficulty in securing manpower, it was necesary to be as efficient as they could. The measure of efficiency was the extent to which the service provided was satisfactory to the# audience and that was what he was trying to find out. That applied, of course, only to the Empire and Allied countries. “There are some countries to which we walk whether they like it or not,” he said. The 8.8. C. transmitted 107 regular news bulletins daily in 46 different languages, and every time it went on the air, whatever was said, was said to all peoples. Although transmissions were zoned to different parts of the world at different times, the broadcasts were audible in many different countries and news had to be framed in a world perspective. Accuracy Essential It was the belief of the 8.8. C. that the underlying necessity of a public broadcasting service was that its news should be true and it put that belief into practice. The news was collected from news agencies and Departments of State in London and from foreign broadcasting stations. To monitor the foreign broadcasts, the 8.8. C. had a staff of more than 500 people who because of the shortage of power worked 12 hours a day. They monitored every station receivable in Britain in all languages and recorded over a million words a day. The information thus conveyed was reduced daily to a 50,000 word precis which went to the service departments and the Foreign Office and was used by the 8.8. C. itself in the composition of its own bulletins and to combat Axis propaganda. The staff of the 8.8. C., which was the largest broadcasting concern in the world, numbered nearly 10,000 and there were many New Zealanders on it. It performed other services besides broadcasting. Its monitoring work, for example, was of great value to the country and in addition it was a storehouse of knowledge and information of every aspect of broadcasting. Never Off The Air Since the outbreak of war, its technical facilities had been strengthened enormously. Alternative transmitters and studios had been built as precautions against war damage to any one building and in spite of heavy bomb damage, the 8.8. C. had never been off the air, a claim which neither Berlin nor Rome could make. On one occasion, pieces of concrete dislodged by a bomb fell about the news reader as he delivered the bulletin but apart from a slight pause, there was no break in the reading. People in the building were killed by that explosion. Next morning, breakfast was prepared for the 500 people on duty by nameless heroes whose only cooking apparatus were two primus stoves. Mr Tritton emphasised his anxiety to hear New Zealand comment on the service and letters addressed to him, care of the National Broadcasting Service would be very welcome.