BRITISH BROADCASTING OVERSEAS
Sm,—In your issue of May 2nd you publish a letter from the Director of Eastern Services 6f the B.B.C. in which he replies to a letter (previously published in your journal) from two correspondents in Ceylon which had criticised the overseas broadcasts of the B.B.C. The Director in his letter points out that every Friday evening at 8.35 p.m. features from the Third Programme can be heard in Ceylon and India. That may be so, but does the Director realise that there is a very great difference between our time and the time in the U.K.? For instance, 8.35 p.m. under British Double Summer Time is 12.5 a.m. with us, and under ordinary G.M.T. would be 2.5 a.m. The majority of people in the East have a job to do, and the day's work starts much earlier than at gome, so that few are able to sacri- fice the sleep that listening to broadcasts after midnight would entail. What I think most listeners would like would be more of the Third Programme type of broadcast between the hours of 6 p.m. and 10 p.m., Ceylon and Indian Standard Time. There is probably someone in the B.B.C. who could translate those times into British time, if the Director of Eastern Services himself is unable to do so.—Yours faithfully, Brownlow Estate, Maskeliya, Ceylon. E. R. CAVE-BROVVNE.
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