AIR, EAR AND EYE .
By KENNETH BAILY CCUSING the Government of dilatoriness in advancing British television may soon become an electioneering gambit, as Mr. Brendan Bracken indicated at Dumbarton last Satur- day. To find out whether it is a valid grumble is an exceedingly difficult job. Rarely does either the Government or the B.B.C. say anything really authoritative about broadcasting problems. Each is in an admirable position to leave it to the other, and each does. Sir William Haley did recently state that a site had been found for the third television station in the North ; that its transmitter was built; but that the Government had not sanctioned the building of the station. It still rests, apparently, with the Cabinet Invest- ment Programme Committee to say whether the full development of television can be reconciled with the demands of national recovery, and whether it is considered worth reconciling. A clear statement as to what the Government thinks about this is long overdue—especially as sound-radio licence-payers all over the country have subsidised television for a minority in the south-east throughout all of television's 'six operational years.
IHowever, it is doubtful if the ball can be left at the Government's feet all the time. In the establishment of what is, after all, a new system of radio broadcasting eagerly demanded by the whole popula- tion, Downing Street would necessarily expect to receive pressure from the B.B.C., if not a plea for financial help. The question has Jong been asked whether the B.B.C. is itself sufficiently excited about 'television, and perhaps not over-confident of its own ability to get .elong without Government aid. It is afraid, of course, of asking for aid which might turn into interference. The B.B.C. side of the battle for television is largely conditioned by a psychological Incapacity to become revolutionary. Sooner or later television must ',precipitate a radio revolution. Hopes that this can be timed to 'a gradual rate, convenient to the B.B.C.'s administrative set-up, appear fanciful in face of the one fundamental fact about tele- Iiiiion, evidence of which is to be found in every viewer's home. Television does compete with sound radio ; the sound-receiver does become something of a back-number ; and viewers hardly require two day-long sound programmes plus a third in the evening. The more listeners become viewers, the less, in effect, are they paying their licence-fee for sound-programmes.
There are now over 130,000 television licence-holders, and the rMidland area, coming within television's orbit at the end of the year, Avill cover a potential 6,000,000 viewers. It only needs the third television transmitter in the North to have half the population on its ;way to being won over from sound listening. Yet Sir William Haley has stated that talk of television's rivalling sound broadcasting is nonsense, and indeed that television is to walk hand-in-hand with
sound in B.B.C. organisation. Though he said this to a conference ,of radio dealers, who might be sensitive about the sales of sound- !radio sets, he soon proved that he was not speaking idly. He recently had one Alexandra Palace department placed under the
direction of a sound department at Broadcasting House ; another )
television department is expected to follow suit shortly. This looks
less like a hand-in-hand policy than a handcuff policy—for television. 1 The B.B.C. in its preoccupation with the future of the large 'organisation it has built up for sound broadcasting is not giving tele- vision a fair share of attention—especially on the material supply side. Teleliision required more studio space in 1938. In 1946 it was in urgent need of modem equipment in its studios. It has recently been allowed to lease more studio space, which will not be ready until the autumn of next year. It has a six-acre stake in the B.B.C.'s " Radio City " plan on the old White City site, but that will not materialise for six years. It is still producing programmes largely iwith pre-war equipment. Post-war shortages cannot serve as a perpetual excuse.
The Government's Television Advisory Committee exists to advise the Postmaster-General on television development. The B.B.C. sits on the committee. The Postmaster-General is vested with considerable legal powers on behalf of television. Yet in a world of official requisitioning and priority marking the P.M.G. has fever requisitioned space for television, nor seen that its urgently needed equipment was given priority. Even now the construction of the Midland transmitter has been held up by steel shortage. if in fact, the B.B.C. pressUre has been there, but the Government has negatived every television request for three years, surely it would have been desirable for Broadcasting House to have said so.
In view of the material conditions in which daily television programmes are being produced, it is a miracle that anything so ambitious ever reaches the screen, or remains there with only a minimum of breakdowns. The question of the hold-up in supplies for television might be tolerated if the Government and the B.B.C.
offered a reasonable excuse. But what is becoming intolerable Is the way in which, in spite of the enthusiasm and technical knowledge accumulated at Alexandra Palace, these material weaknesses are frustrating the development of television as an artistic medium. Furthermore, the sound and vision " hand-in-hand " policy at Broad- casting House will, it seems, inevitably restrict the development of programmes. Is a sound-radio organisation on the B.B.C.'s admini- strative model the right organisation to put drive into television ?
Television faces the B.B.C. with something new in its experience. Unlike the development of sound radio at Savoy Hill, it is an expensive job, both initially and for all time. It calls for a skilful amalgam of the resources of radio, film and theatre ; it needs more man-power and more time for preparation than sound broadcasting ; it asks for audacity and experiment in administrative practice and in the investment of money. Obvious as these facts ought to be, the B.B.C. persists in trying to fit television into the stereotyped sound organisation, the most remarkable features of which are checks and counter-checks to save the odd shilling, and checks and counter- checks to avoid the risk of doing what is unprecedented.
The next eighteen months to two years can be the most richly creative for television as a technique of entertainment and enlighten- ment ; but to reap that reward the Alexandra Palace staff requires freedom to spend a lot of money, and a lot of manpower, on experiment, as well as on improving the best it has already discovered.
As things stand, it seems more than likely that television will be starved in the next two years. The Government should say once and for all whether it considers the development of a national tele- vision service wise within the context of the national recovery. The B.B.C. should make clear whether it has the money to develop television properly without aid. And somebody should judge whether the B.B.C. is the right kind of organisation for a job necessarily revolutionary. This task of judgement would naturally fall to the pending enquiry on the B.B.C.; but its findings are a long way off—at the end of 195o at the earliest. This leaves a dangerous hiatus, because between now and then television needs a vigorous infusion of audacious thinking and courageous investment. Skimped of this, it is in danger of becoming backward in itself and of becoming a bigger thorn in the side of the B.B.C. That would be awkward at a time when the Corporation's charter is under review and the question open whether. to renew the charter auto- matically or with some enforced—and revolutionary—conditions.
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