Oscars of the Air
When I heard the announcer say that the BBC had been awarded, in Florence, the ' Italia Prix' for 1954, I went on shaving, but began for some reason to think of Empress of Blandings, Lord Emsworth's champion sow. I would not for a moment suggest that the award of a cultural prize to a public corporation is in any way comparable to the award of a rosette to a pig; but there is about both transactions a sad- dening sense of impersonality. One wishes that the pig could be made sensible of the honour that has been done it; and one cannot help fearing that the thrill of pride which so signal a mark of recognition would send coursing through the veins of an individual may become diffused and diluted as it circulates round the in-trays of Broadcasting House. The BBC have in fact won two prizes, one for a sound radio production of Under Milk Wood, the other for a production on television. Prizes have also been given to the Belgian, Swiss and Dutch broadcasting systems for, respectively, the best documentary, musical and operatic programmes of 1954. The judges, who in order to arrive at a balanced decision presumably have to listen to every major programme in every European language, must have had an exacting year of it.
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