2 AUGUST 1946, Page 13

AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING

SIR,—Mr. H. S. McPherson's views of Australian radio, as given in his letter in The Spectator of July r9th, are interesting. His comments on the article Sponsored Radio, by Mr. Lloyd Thomas, suggest, however, that he is not clear about the essential nature of Australian broadcasting. His reference to advertising over the air refers only to one section of Australian broadcasting, the " B " class or commercial stations. The Australian Broadcasting Commission, which runs the " A " class broad- casting stations throughout Australia, is like the B.B.C. in that its service carries no advertising. While the Australian radio licence costs £i a year, the A.B.C. receives only 12s. out of this. The balance goes to the Post Office, which maintains the technical upkeep of the " A " class stations. If the A.B.C. had a set revenue of £700,000 from licences, as Mr. McPherson states, this would represent 1,166,000 licences. As a matter of fact, there were, on June 30th, 1945, 1479,802 radio licences in Australia. This was 19.38 per cent. of the population. There is practically one radio set to every five persons. This is surely a high proportion. In fact, there are few homes in Australia without a set.—Yours very truly,