RADIO
THIS week, with the opening of the Sutton Coldfield transmitting station, television reaches a stage in its life rather like a twenty- first birthday ; it now has the key of the door. It is no longer a perquisite of the London listener. The Sutton Coldfield station covers (at the least optimistic estimate) from well past Shrewsbury in the West to Market Harborough in the East ; or (reading from North to South) from Macclesfield to Cheltenham. So powerful, though, is the new Midland station that its range is likely to be far wider, freak spots excepted.
A majority, when such a thing as television comes of age, is an excellent occasion for rejoicing ; but It brings its own problems. The B.B.C. must now, surely, take television far more seriously than it has done in the past—especially when we remember that the new Midland station is only one step in television's life. Being now of age, it will breed ; and it has indeed already planned its progeny (at Malthusian intervals) in the shape of new, suckling stations elsewhere in these islands. This television is going to be a very big business—something unparalleled since radio itself became so important a power in the 'twenties.
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