RADIO AND RECEPTION

Waipawa Mail, Volume LXVII, Issue 44, 23 December 1938, Page 4

RADIO AND RECEPTION

Mr J. Frank Willis, a member of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a through passenger by the Aorangi for Sydney, was a caller at IYA on Monday. A producer of plays and dramatic features, he is on exchange as a producer for the Australian Broadcasting Commission for a period of four months. Mr Willis expressed his surprise at finding such a modern station in Auckland, and considered IYA, particularly the large concert hall, one of the best appointed studios he had seen.

For about three years talks styled “At Home and Abroad” and commentaries on “News Behind the News” have been given over the Australian National circuit. The iden tity of the broadcaster has been concealed behind the microphone name, “The Watchman,” but it is now revealed that the speaker is E. A. Mann, formerly a member of the Federal House of Representatives representing Perth. These talks have attracted fairly widespread attention, more because they are “frank and fearless” than because the author is authoritative.

Stockholm forbids the use of ‘ ‘ loud speakers ’ ’ between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., and Copenhagen will not allow excessive volume after 10 p.m. An interesting ease is reported from Belgium. There is apparently no regulation for dealing with reproduction which becomes a nuisance, but one set owner who persisted in loud reproduction was held to be giving a public performance, and, therefore, liable to copyright royalties to the composers whose works were being ‘ ‘ broadcast. ’ ’

For years the 8.8. C. and the British Government took no steps to combat broadcast propaganda. The unrest in Palestine led to special Arabian programmes on the short-wave, but these were regarded as additional to the ordinary activities of the corporation, devised to meet a special position, and were not a part of a general policy. Lately the corporation has amended all its programmes to provide for news bulletins in foreign languages for reception in Europe. These are put on the air over a variety of wave-lengths ranging from 1500 metres to 25 metres, 12 distinct transmitters being employed daily. These European broadcasts give the news in French, German and Italian. There is another special service for Britons abroad in Europe, news bulletins being provided four times daily.

In a recent broadcast, the new British Broadcasting Corporation direc-tor-general said that the aim of the corporation in its Home programmes of sound and television, its Empire programmes and its broadcasts in foreign languages was public service and the interests of peace. It would be agreed that broadcasting and television were gifts in trust from science and that therefore freedom of the air was something precious. It therefore followed that as a monopoly it was the duty of the to aim at doing all it could to meef the very varied tastes and needs of people at Home and to contribute internationally to mutual understanding and so to the peace of the world. The broadcasting service was not a machine; it was people working for people, actors, craftsmen and news editors, to give listeners the varied programmes broadcast.