Extending the Television Empire
On Saturday last the television map of England showed for the first time, beside the area surrounding Alexandra Palace, a second roughly circular region with its centre at Sutton Coldfield and its circumference touching points as distant as Hull, 120 miles away. Those giants of their kind, the engineers of the B.B.C., over- came a technical hitch at the outset with a smoothness and despatch which were in themselves an indicator of high organisation, and from then on a programme of admirable clarity could be seen. Within three years three new stations will extend these benefits to the North of England, Central Scotland and the South-West and Wales. Television will come without open question, just as sound broadcasting came without open question. The note of self- congratulation sounded at the inaugural luncheon would have been equally appropriate on an earlier occasion if Canute had told the incoming tide to advance, instead of telling it to recede. It is simply going to happen. Such questions as are being asked in odd corners may never be deliberately answered. In these days, when we are informed that new luxuries are out of the question, can we really afford the use of real resources far exceeding the measure of the modest £700,000 which it costs to build a station or the £800,000 a year which it costs (at present) to run the service ? Is it per- fectly clear that if the B.B.C. were not undertaking this new development, with money provided by listeners to sound broad- casting, some other enterprise would be able to get official consent to raise the funds in the open market ? Is the present organisation the right one ? Is it certain that this new piece of household apparatus, which requires exclusive attention, will become a necessity as readily as the sound receiver, which does not ? Do we know what we are doing ? Or do we care ?
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