SOME OF the BBC's propaganda is really very childish. I
have in front of me a document issued by the Corporation's press department, purport- ing to be a comparison between the number of people who listen to sound radio and those who watch television. A whole foolscap page is devoted to a diagrammatic demonstration of the fact that there are over 22 million daily listeners, almost as large a number as BBC and ITV viewers put together. The comparison is ridicu- lous, for the simple reason that it does not take into account for how long (let alone why) the listener listens. The man who switches on his car radio for some music for a few minutes on his drive home is, apparently, a 'daily listener'; he is given equal weight with the addict who sits stupefied in front of his TV set throughout the evening. My impression is that the number of people who really listen to sound programmes —as distinct from having them for a background —is very small. It is by no means negligible; but it certainly does not require the bureaucratic hierarchy which has puffed itself out in Portland Place to run it. When Professor Parkinson returns from Singapore he might turn his attention to the BBC; it is the most remarkable exercise in empire-building job-duplication 1 have ever come across.
PHAROS
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