A Radio Review
NEXT week the B.B.C. celebrates its tenth birthday. The occasion marks a vast and stimulating achievement. Ten years is not a long while when one considers the stride that has been made since those simple one-hour-a-day programmes broadcast from Marconi House in 1922. And broadcasting is still the merest child. We are all radio critics in the British Isles to-day-five millions of us ; and each of us has his Mtn ideas as to how the B.B.C. should be run ; but, detailed criticism apart, it is doubtful whether any other organization could have formulated and maintained a more satisfactory policy of broadcasting than the B.B.C. has done. In a message to the current issue of the Radio Times, Sir John Reith suggests that perhaps the success of the B.B.C. may be told " in terms of happier homes and of more contented and useful lives." And, on the whole, there is no doubt that Sir John's tenacity to a high-minded policy his enabled the B.B.C. to evolve a programme which (Germany, perhaps, excepted) is far ahead of any other country. He has refused to belittle the listener's intelligence. It only remains for the listener to exercise the intelligence with which he has been credited ; for certainly, if be is discriminate and wisely sober in his demands, he will find in the week's programmes ample entertainment for his money.
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