I move:—
That a sum not exceeding £163,550 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending the 31st day of March, 1949, for Salaries and other Expenses in connection with Wireless Broadcasting (No. 45 of 1926), including Public Concerts.
In putting the Estimate for Wireless Broadcasting before the House I propose, as is usual, to deal first with the financial position and to follow with references to the main developments that took place during the past year and to future policy.
The provision required in the Estimate before you is £245,550, a decrease of £81,535 on the Estimate for last year. The decrease occurs entirely in the provision for technical equipment which is down by £108,005, but this is partly offset by increases under other sub-heads, principally in sub-head B, which covers the cost of daily programmes.
The following is a brief explanation of the causes of increase or decrease in the provision in any of the individual sub-heads in which there has been a substantial variation from the previous year.
Sub-head A, which provides for salaries and wages, shows an increase of £4,765. The increase is due principally to a strengthening of the doorkeeper staff, made necessary by an expansion of the broadcasting premises and to a change in accounting practice under which the salaries of officials on loan to the station are shown in the broadcasting Estimate instead of in the Estimates for their own Departments.
There is a fairly substantial increase of £13,550 in sub-head B, from which the fees are paid for the daily programmes. The higher provision is required mainly to pay somewhat better fees than formerly. The general increase in wage levels that have taken place has, of course, affected the payments that must be made to those who give their services for radio programmes. Actually the repercussions from the change in wage levels made themselves felt during the past year and the provision for fees in the 1947-48 Estimate was exceeded. The extra cost had to be met by savings on other sub-heads.
Sub-head C provides for musical instruments and music. The increase of £2,650 in this sub-head is needed mainly for the purchase of pianos, two of which are required for new outside halls provided permanently for studio broadcasts by the two radio orchestras. The hire and purchase of music will, of course, also cost more than formerly when there was only one orchestra.
The main cause of the increase of £4,800 in sub-head D is for the payment of the travelling and subsistence expenses of outside broadcast officers and descriptive writers and for special expenses of a temporary nature incidental to the recruitment of the enlarged symphony orchestra.
The large decrease of £108,005 in sub-head F is due to the fact that the bulk of the cost of the transmitter and aerial systems for an overseas broadcasting service which it was proposed to establish was provided in last year's Estimate. Of the sum of £60,890 provided for equipment this year, £30,000 is a revote in respect of the cost of part of the short-wave equipment. The House is aware of the position regarding the short-wave station. We are committed to part of the expenditure included this year for equipment purchased, but there will be a saving of about £14,000 on the capital expenditure provided in the sub-head. The balance of the estimated expenditure in sub-head F, apart from that intended for short-wave equipment, is for the maintenance and operation of recording equipment and for ordinary maintenance and renewals for the home service stations.
In the explanations I have given above in regard to estimated expenditure under particular sub-heads, I have taken the figures as shown in the published Estimates. As a result of the short-wave situation I anticipate a saving of about £20,000 on programme expenditure spread over the various sub-heads.
The remainder of the sub-heads do not call for comment as the estimated expenditure is normal and does not vary greatly from last year's provision. I should refer, however, to the token provision of £10 for a radio journal. A broadcasting journal is a normal appanage of most broadcasting organisations throughout the world and the need for such a journal here has long been felt. No decisions have as yet been taken or commitments entered into : the object of the provision under sub-head I is simply to secure the approval of the Dáil for whatever expenditure may be incurred in the current financial year.
The receipts from wireless licence fees for the past financial year were approximately £122,000, and from advertising programmes £64,000. In the present year the revenue from licence fees is estimated at £122,000, and from advertising at £66,000, that is a total of £188,000. The total estimated expenditure from the Wireless Broadcasting Vote and from other Votes for services performed for broadcasting, is estimated at £291,352. The excess of expenditure over revenue is, therefore, anticipated to be £103,352. The expenditure includes the cost of the short-wave transmissions, in respect of which there would be no receipts by way of licence fees, and also the sum of about £30,000, already mentioned, for the completion of the equipment. The receipts from wireless licence fees will likely be somewhat higher than that shown in the Estimate, which was, of course, framed a considerable time ago.
The House was informed on last year's Estimate that certain expansions of the programme organisation were taking place. These were introduced primarily in connection with the proposed inauguration of an overseas service, but they are no less necessary for the proper presentation of programmes for our listeners at home, and for the most part their retention is imperative. The time has passed when the specialised work of programme presentation can be allowed to depend to any considerable extent on amateur or part-time professional talent, and the additions that have been made to the programme organisation have already quite obviously lifted the standard of the station. No one, for instance, will, I think, question the success of the repertory company, that team of fulltime actors with producer and assistant producer who began work in the station about nine months ago. These are people experienced in their profession who can now devote their whole time to the perfection of broadcasting technique. Rehearsals, which formerly could only be held in the evenings to suit part-time actors, are now going on practically continuously from early morning each day and this intensive preparation is reflected in better finished work and more ambitious productions.
I should say here that the provision of light variety entertainment has been, and still is, the bug-bear of broadcasting. As a nation we have the reputation of being witty, but our wit, I believe, is of the spontaneous kind and is not easily made to order. Native professional variety artists are rare and theatres depend a good deal on cross-Channel turns. The number of variety artists here who are also good broadcasters is more limited still, so that the provision of variety shows day after day and week after week is probably the most difficult problem of our radio organisation.
Since last year's Estimate's statement, too, the bulk of the recruitment for the enlarged symphony orchestra has taken place and a light orchestra has also been found. These developments have added notably to the musical side of the programmes. The practice has been continued of bringing in continental musicians on short-term engagements to conduct the principal orchestra. To encourage the dissemination of musical knowledge— while providing an audience for the orchestra—invitations are issued each week to the public to participate, free of charge, in the symphony concerts broadcast from the orchestral studio in the Phoenix Hall. The hall is filled to capacity for every concert and enables many hundreds of Dublin people each week to hear performances of classical and contemporary music. I hope in time it will be possible to send the orchestra out to visit at least some of the larger provincial centres in order that the benefit of the only professional symphony combination in Ireland will be more widely diffused. It is necessary that people should see orchestras as well as hear them as part of the process of musical education. The second orchestra, which is being trained and conducted by a well-known Irish musician, supplies a long-felt need in the broadcasting organisation. In addition to giving regular performances of what may be termed light orchestral music, it functions as a céili band and also assists in variety shows as occasion demands.
An up-to-date mobile recording unit with van, which was recently put on the road, has in a very short time added substantially to the number of "live" descriptive features and repeatedly gives an actuality quality to the news bulletins. When a second recording unit which is on order comes into operation it should be possible to do more long term work such as obtaining material of permanent value from the Gaeltacht. One unit is likely to be fairly fully occupied in Dublin City and other centres taking recordings of current happenings.
There has been pressure in the House and elsewhere mainly on behalf of the farming community, for more localised and detailed weather reports than had been given, and the suggestion was made last year that there should be a weather forecast about 9 a.m. The matter has since been fully examined, and I am glad to say that as from the 1st April a separate forecast has been given for each of the provinces, as well as the general forecast. We have looked into the matter of a morning forecast and have discussed it with representatives of the Department of Agriculture, but taking everything into consideration, we felt that this is a development that is hardly called for. The station would, of course, have to be opened specially for the purpose, and this would involve considerable expense. In any event, in addition to the short weather bulletins at 1.30 and 6.30 p.m. the forecast prepared for 10.10 p.m. is given in more detail as required. This covers a period of 24 hours ahead, that is up to about 10 p.m. the following day, and should thus meet all reasonable needs of people preparing for the next day's farming operations. Of course, if experience shows that the forecasts now being provided do not meet the situation, we shall be happy to review it.
I have outlined the financial position of broadcasting and the principal developments that have taken place during the year and I would now like to make some general comments on broadcasting policy. On the occasion of this Estimate each year some Deputies are kind enough to give the service credit for doing as well as possible with the resources at its command while others have recommendations to make or strong criticism to offer which the Minister is expected to defend. I should like to say at once that I am aware the service has shortcomings about which I would expect to hear some dissatisfaction expressed in the House. I have, of course, been responsible for broadcasting for only a short period but it has not required any particular sagacity on my part to diagnose some of its troubles.
In the first place, the State has not unlimited resources and only a reasonable amount of money—much less than could have been used with advantage— could be placed at the disposal of the broadcasting service each year. The Department of Finance has made particular efforts to help in this direction in recent years but there are still much-needed improvements which it has so far not been found possible to effect. One of the big problems—which involve financial as well as other considerations—is that of accommodation. Although the service has been over 20 years in operation it has not yet got a building of its own. When broadcasting was first established in this country in 1926 the studios were put in a couple of rooms in business premises in this city and "makeshift" accommodation of that character has been the order ever since. In 1929 the studios were removed to the General Post Office. The General Post Office is a fine building but it was not built or designed for broadcasting. Because of the penetration of noise from the street, lack of acoustic properties and inadequate space for rehearsals and performances it is just what a broadcasting station should not be in almost every particular.
While the building is totally unsuitable for broadcasting, the space allotted for that purpose has created an almost intolerable situation for the ordinary Post Office services for which of course the premises were designed. For recent broadcasting expansion, additional blocks of space have been taken within the building, with the result that the Post Office staffs are being scattered throughout the city with consequent inconvenience and loss of efficiency for the postal services. With a view to dealing with this predicament, a site was acquired last year for a new broadcasting building and a token provision for its erection is included in the current Public Works and Buildings Estimate. I recognise, and I have no doubt the House will recognise, the magnitude of the work of erecting a broadcasting house with all the special features which are not necessary in an ordinary type of building. I also appreciate that the cost will be heavy. Because of the large cost that will be entailed and having regard to the serious problems of every kind associated with building projects at the present time, I am unable to say when the task of providing the broadcasting house can be faced. I feel, however, that I should let Deputies know who may be exercised about the standard of the programmes that the lack of proper accommodation is a serious handicap for the programme staffs, and that many of the director's difficulties cannot be removed until such time as it is found possible to provide more suitable premises.
The second great deficiency in broadcasting lies in the absence of a second programme. As Deputies know, Radio Eireann broadcasts a single programme only—and that simultaneously from the three transmitters at Athlone, Dublin and Cork—while the number of hours of broadcasting is pretty much the same as it was in 1926, when the Dublin Station was first opened. In this single programme of limited duration we have to cater for two languages and to satisfy high brow and low brow tastes and all the grades of taste in between. In the result nobody can be fully satisfied and our nationals naturally turn elsewhere for the material they can't get from the home station. I am convinced that the basic cause of whatever genuine dissatisfaction exists is to be found here, and not in the day-to-day programme policy of the station. That is probably as good, generally speaking, as it can be, having regard to the limitations of a single programme as well as those of talent, finance and accommodation with which the authorities have to contend.
There are two main problems connected with the provision of a second programme. They are: money and wavelengths. Accommodation is also a difficulty but I have already dealt with that. On the question of money it is obvious that the broadcasting service should, to the largest possible extent, be self-supporting. Development, such as I am here dealing with, must accordingly proceed in parallel with an expansion in broadcasting revenue. The second problem of wavelengths, which is in the international domain, is not within our own control. The Dublin and Cork transmitters work on low power which international regulations prevent us from increasing. A separate programme from Dublin or Cork, or from both, would cover only a limited area of the country and would not therefore be very satisfactory. An independent wavelength additional to that on which the transmissions are made from the highpower station at Athlone is, therefore, an essential. The wavelength accommodation available is, however, entirely insufficient for all the broadcasting stations operating in Europe and there is as a consequence serious congestion and interference between stations; some stations are actually working outside the wavelengths proper to broadcasting thus causing interference to other types of radio-using services.
A conference is now in session at Copenhagen at which, provided no political issues of an international character prevail, an effort will be made to bring order into the wavelength position and to draw up a plan of allocations for European broadcasting stations. We have put forward a claim for consideration by that conference for a second independent wavelength but, because of the congestion I have just mentioned, we cannot be assured that our claim can be met. Moreover, if we had an extra wavelength now and were otherwise ready to proceed with the additional programme the provision of a transmitter and other equipment would take a considerable time because of the scarcity of steel and other materials and the general frustration encountered nowadays at every step in carrying out manufacturing processes. The second programme for the reasons I have stated is, therefore, more an aim than an immediate prospect, but it is an aim that I would like to see realised as soon as circumstances permit.
The last question of policy I want to touch on is perhaps the most fundamental of them all—the question whether the present system of control and operation of the broadcasting service is the best one. This matter has often been referred to in the Press and elsewhere. My short association with broadcasting has not enabled me to form any definite views on that subject and I have an open mind on it. I do know that the Post Office was from the beginning opposed to the idea of the operation by a State Department of a service for the provision mainly of entertainment. It did not consider a Civil Service Department a suitable medium for the purpose. Experience has not disproved the Post Office view.
Inclusion in the Civil Service organisation has, of course, certain advantages, the value of which I do not underrate. For example, its well-established accounting system ensures a high degree of safety in broadcasting finances. But this elaborate system of financial control has in itself the inherent disadvantage of slowing down and stereotyping a service whose characteristics should be those of change and variety. To enable some degree of flexibility to be achieved the Minister for Finance has from time to time delegated a good deal of financial authority and quite recently these delegations were widened considerably. But the question goes beyond one of mere finance. A civil servant, by tradition and training, feels the need to anticipate difficulties to save his Department possible embarrassments. In fact, safety must be his keynote. This emphasis on safety imposes a rigidity in the material broadcast which is fatal in such a service.
I should say here that within the present broadcasting organisation a most competent staff has been collected and I am satisfied that no alternative type of organisation, such as a semi-independent corporation, would be able to secure more highly qualified people. I am quite certain they are capable of doing everything that broadcasting requires of them if they can be made to feel that they are free to do so without all the inhibitions associated with the more normal type of Civil Service department.
To give an adequate trial to the present broadcasting set-up I feel that one desirable step is the creation for these people of an atmosphere in which they can give of their best. A form of encouragement I believe in is to tell the staffs responsible for the programmes, as I do now, that I have every confidence in them and that apart from laying down policy for them in general terms I propose to give them the widest measure of freedom possible to do their job. This will help towards the provision of better programmes and will give us the opportunity of judging, at our leisure, under the better conditions created, whether a Civil Service organisation is capable of catering adequately for this most unusual type of State service. I am sure that in this task the Broadcasting Service will continue to benefit from the advice tendered by the advisory committee which is being reconstituted with an enlarged membership.
One move in the direction of loosening up the rigid limitations on the use of the radio was the suggestion I got recently in a Dáil question to allow representatives of political parties to present their views to listeners on current national affairs in uncensored statements. From the purely broadcasting point of view the director would welcome such broadcasts as he believes they would be of particular interest to listeners. All the Parties in the House were, however, given an opportunity to present their views on the subject and these were almost unanimously against the introduction of political broadcasts or indifferent to the proposal. The matter was, therefore, dropped.
Apart from purely political broadcasts I feel there is room for considerable relaxation of the attitude hitherto maintained towards discussions and debates before the microphone of matters of current interest in which there is some element of controversy. Listeners have a keen appreciation of these live topics and, provided the decencies are observed, I do not think a discussion of them on the radio does any harm. On the contrary, it may do positive good in educating public opinion or in providing an additional vent for the expression of conflicting views.
I should like to refer here to a complaint recently made in the House that the news bulletins contain political attacks against the Opposition Party. I ask the Deputies to accept my assurance that since I became Minister for Posts and Telegraphs I have not given any direction whatever in regard to the policy to be adopted in the news bulletins nor have I made the slightest suggestion as to what should or should not be included in or excluded from a bulletin. The station officials responsible for the selection and editing of items of news for broadcasting are civil servants whose conditions of employment require them not to favour any political party and I think the proper course and the fairest to all Parties is to allow them, without interference, to select the news they consider of most general interest to listeners without restrictions in regard to where the statements are made or as to the persons making them.
It is, of course, inevitable that Ministers get more publicity than private Deputies. This applied to the last Government, it applies to the present Government and will apply to any future Government. If the radio, as do the newspapers, gives more space to the statements of Ministers, who have the responsibilities of office, than they do to the speeches of ordinary Deputies I do not think that this can reasonably be held to be political bias or an attack of any sort. There has been a considerable growth of radio criticism in recent years. Most of the daily newspapers and some of the periodicals have special radio correspondents. This is all very desirable and helps the public to a keener appreciation of the possibilities of a still relatively new medium. The work of these critics deserves to be encouraged and I am glad to learn that as a development in that direction the broadcasting service is arranging for periodical conferences with these critics at which information and ideas will be exchanged. Criticism is wholesome; the only plea I make regarding it is that it should not descend to personal abuse of the officials of Radio Éireann who are not able, because of their office, to defend themselves.
That concludes my statement. I have confined myself mainly to matters of policy, and I would be much obliged to Deputies if they would adopt the same line. Information on matters of detail can more appropriately be got by personal or written inquiry to the Director of Broadcasting.
