I move:—
That a sum not exceeding £164,790 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st day of March, 1951, for salaries and other expenses in connection with Wireless Broadcasting (No. 45 of 1926), including Public Concerts.
The amount that will be needed for wireless broadcasting during the financial year 1950-51 is £247,180. This is an increase of £33,530 on the total of the original and Supplementary Estimates for the previous year. There are increases totalling £33,720 in eight of the ten sub-heads and a decrease of £190 on sub-head D, making a net increase of £33,530.
I shall refer briefly to the changes in the main sub-heads as compared with last year.
Sub-head A—Salaries, Wages and Allowances.—The sum required here is £15,700 greater than last year and the increase is partly due to the provision of additional staff urgently needed for expanding activities, including four posts to deal with complaints of interference to radio reception, and partly to improvements in the pay of the orchestras, increments, staff changes, etc.
Sub-head B—Cost of Daily Programmes.—There is an increase of £5,730 under this sub-head. £1,500 of the increase is required for the improvement of variety shows, £300 is for an extension of the news in Irish and a small provision of £100 has been made for symphony concerts to be given in the provinces. The remainder of the increase is due mainly to increased copyright fees, which are based on the number of wireless licences in force, and greater expenditure on telephone trunks.
Sub-head C—Musical Instruments, Music, etc.—The increase of £1,000 in this sub-head is due to the purchase of a number of pianos.
Sub-head E—Light, Power, etc.— The increase of £3,050 in this sub-head is due chiefly to provision for light and heat in new studios in the General Post Office and Portobello.
Sub-head F—Equipment, etc.—The increase of £7,595 on this sub-head is due to provision for equipment for radio interference investigation and to increased provision for additional apparatus required for the Dublin-Cork high power and short-wave stations. Deputies will remember that I said last year that the station needs a lot of equipment to bring it up to date, and make up for the scarcity of the war years, but we are forced to proceed slowly, and can only purchase the most pressing items of equipment this year.
Sub-head G—International and other Conferences and Conventions.—An increased amount is necessary under this sub-head because our subscription to the International Broadcasting Union has to be paid in Swiss francs, which have appreciated in value as a result of the devaluation of the pound.
Sub-head H—Telegrams and Telephones.—The increase of £360 in this sub-head is due to the extension of the activities of the broadcasting station, mainly as regards news reports and musical programmes.
Only one of the remaining sub-heads calls for special observation. When speaking on this Estimate last year I referred to the provision in sub-head I for a radio journal, and stated that I hoped that suitable arrangements would be made shortly for the provision of an official journal. The arrangements I then had in mind did not, however, materialise, and the question of the provision of a journal has not therefore yet been settled.
The receipts from wireless licence fees during the financial year 1949-50 amounted to £181,000 approximately, and from advertising programmes to about £47,000. The total receipts were therefore £228,000. The present indications are that the figure of £228,000 shown on page 1 of the Estimate as the anticipated receipts in 1950-51 will be exceeded by a fairly substantial amount, so that on a revenue and expenditure basis the service will probably pay for itself.
The number of wireless licences in force on the 31st March, 1950, was 288,495 as against 272,050 in March, 1949, representing an increase of 16,445 during the year. This increase was much less than the increase of 77,000 during the previous year but, as I explained last year, 60,000 of that increase was due to a special countrywide campaign instituted at the end of 1948 against holders of unlicensed radio sets. No special campaign was carried out last year, but wireless licence inspections are being continually carried out. In Dublin, a special staff is engaged full-time on the detection of wireless licence defaulters and in the provinces Post Office staff is employed part-time on this work. Postmasters throughout the country were recently given instructions to increase their efforts against radio pirates and as a result over 6,400 new wireless licences were taken out during the month of March. This figure was very much more than the number of new licences taken out in any previous month. As a deterrent to presons who fail to renew their wireless licences promptly the Post Office is now instituting legal proceedings at a much earlier stage than previously. During the three months January to March this year over 600 offenders were prosecuted and fines imposed.
I referred last year to the problem of interference with radio reception caused by electrical apparatus. There has been a considerable increase in the number of complaints from listeners all over the country and a campaign was started during the year to reduce this annoyance to the minimum. The fullest co-operation of the Wireless Dealers' Association was offered and gratefully accepted and manufacturers of electrical equipment have been requested to co-operate when it is found that their products are the cause of serious interference. The Post Office has now made arrangements to fit suppressors permanently to offending plant where the owners are willing to pay the cost, and in this work the activities of the wireless dealers and the Post Office will be complementary. As I mentioned already, additional investigation staff as well as additional apparatus and detection vans have been provided for in this year's Estimate. It will, however, take an appreciable time before all the complaints already received can be investigated.
On the 15th March, 1950, the Copenhagen Plan for broadcasting stations in the European zone came into operation. The Irish stations changed their wavelengths to those allocated to them in the Copenhagen Plan, but as transmissions on the wavelength allocated to the Cork station cannot be received on many of the sets now in use, it has been temporarily assigned the wavelength allocated to us for a second programme. As the plan is in operation for only a short time, it is, as yet, rather early to judge its success. Although the majority of stations in the European zone have altered their wavelengths to those allocated to them in the plan, there are 82 stations at present operating outside the plan, and these are causing interference, sometimes serious, to other stations. One of these has been spoiling our Athlone transmissions at times, but steps are being taken to deal with the matter.
Before I come to the activities of the station during the past year, I should like to refer to one matter in the international sphere which is likely to have important results for broadcasting generally in Europe, that is, the formation of the new European Broadcasting Union. As Deputies will probably know, the allocation of bands of wavelengths for broadcasting and for other services such as the international radio, telephone and telegraph services and the assignment of specific wavelengths in these bands are arranged between Governments in an organisation known as the International Telecommunications Union. Thus the Copenhagen Conference of 1948, operating on the bands allotted to broadcasting the previous year by an all-world conference of the union, determined the wavelengths on which the different countries within the European zones could work. But the problems of broadcasting do not cease, I need hardly tell the House, with the preparation of a plan. That plan has to be supervised in order that justice may be done between the parties to it. This involves continuous monitoring by an expert control centre. But apart from this task, which falls within the sphere of engineering, broadcasting gives rise to a great number of problems, for instance, in the realm of copyright, which require the unremitting attention of a permanent body in order that the way towards international conventions or agreements may be prepared and these conventions or agreements thereafter properly applied. Since the inception of broadcasting and up to the beginning of the war in 1939, tasks of this nature were undertaken in the European area by the International Broadcasting Union with headquarters in Geneva, which was composed of representatives of broadcasting organisations rather than of Governments. We were a member since 1928. During the war its activities were naturally severely limited. In 1946 a rival body, the International Broadcasting Organisation, was set up in Brussels mainly with the support of countries of Eastern Europe, but some of the Western countries also affiliated. This division has been a cause of anxiety to those responsible for the conduct of broadcasting in every country. The ether cannot be divided in accordance with one's position East or West of the Iron Curtain and it has at all times been obvious that, unless there was co-operation in the working of wavelength assignment plans, chaos would ensue. Much patient negotiation since 1946 resulted in the formation at Torquay this year of the new broadcasting union to which I referred earlier. It is comprised of practically all the broadcasting organisations of Western Europe and of the Mediterranean area, including those Western countries which were formerly members of the Brussels body. Yugoslavia is also a member. On the other hand, the withdrawal of the Western countries from the International Broadcasting Organisation means that that body, with its headquarters now situated at Prague, consists almost entirely of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and its satellites. Notwithstanding this clearcut division of broadcasters. East and West, I am glad to say that I understand the technical centres of the broadcasting bodies are co-operating to secure the best results from the Copenhagen Plan.
In presenting a Supplementary Estimate for Wireless Broadcasting to the House in March, I said that I hoped to have more information available in regard to the short-wave station when the main Estimate for this year came to be taken. I mentioned then that the transmitter and aerials for North America had been completed. Another North American aerial will actually be needed to cover a certain period of the year, and arrangements are being made to obtain and erect this aerial. We secured a share in the basic wavelength plan at Mexico in 1949 and further phases of the plan have since been under examination by a group of technical experts in Paris. The final World Conference for the consideration and adoption of the whole plan is at present in progress at Florence. The sum of £10,000 provided in this year's Estimates is required to provide the extra aerial I have mentioned and a complete set of spare parts.
I referred last year, when introducing the Broadcasting Estimate, to the unsuitable accommodation in which this service is carried out. It has not been found possible to remedy this situation completely during the year, but remedies are continuously being sought, and partial success has attended the search. For example, an additional studio has been provided for broadcasting at Portobello, Dublin, by the renovation of what was formerly a post office, and programmes have been transmitted from it since last December. This studio is mainly used by the light orchestra, and Deputies who have heard concerts from Portobello will, I am sure, agree that the new studio has greatly improved the transmission of these concerts.
Improvements, again, have been made in the Phoenix Hall, Dublin, which is the one used by the symphony orchestra; and experiment has resulted in the more varied employment of this hall for other programmes, including variety. Further, we have had the benefit—and we are grateful for it—of advice from experts of the British Broadcasting Corporation who, at the request of my Department, examined and reported upon various matters connected with our conditions of transmission. Their suggestions for further improvement in this aspect of broadcasting are being closely examined.
Again, we have not confined our efforts to broadcasting headquarters. The studio requirements of the Cork station are constantly before our minds, and there are distinct possibilities that accommodation and equipment projects in regard to which there have been discussions, will come to maturity within a reasonable time. I regret that it is not possible just now to be more explicit; but no time is being lost in the endeavour to make progress with broadcasting improvements in the Cork station.
Finally, plans are in progress for the conversion to broadcasting needs of a further limited portion of the General Post Office. When they come to maturity there will be some little relief from the admittedly bad conditions under which broadcasting is carried on at present.
Coming now to the programmes proper, I understand that these have been more varied in kind, more extensive in coverage and more finished in presentation than in any previous year. They have been more varied in kind because new means have been sought of instructing and entertaining the listener, and because there has been close collaboration between programme departments. For example, we have had programmes such as the Christmas Pantomime of 1949—in which the productions department, the music department, the script-writers, the producers, the Radio Éireann Players and the light orchestra, as well as outside artistes from theatres and concert halls, combined to give us ambitions forms of entertainment hitherto necessarily unattempted. We have had, and still have, variety and musical comedy shows in which four departments are concerned, and we have had news magazines in which the mobile unit and the news-room achieved new levels of co-operation. I mention this matter of co-operative effort because it illustrates the flexible employment of resources and because it represents a further elaboration in the use of staff sections, and also of material, which have not been at our disposal until recent years.
I mentioned just now that we have sought new means of instructing and entertaining the listener. There could be many illustrations of these, but perhaps the illustrations which affect the majority concern broadcasts to farmers and variety programmes.
The importance of broadcasts to farmers has always been fully appreciated, but the task of providing them satisfactorily has been one of the most disheartening in Radio Éireann's experience. In the past 12 months, however, further progress has been made. Two talks have been broadcast every week. These have been given by farmers, farmers' wives and others thoroughly familiar with their subjects in the most practical way; the speakers, on the whole, have been good broadcasters—some of them were excellent in every way; and the range of subjects covered has been extensive. The work of providing 100 talks a year in this field is strenuous; but the station has been aided by bodies such as the young farmers' clubs, and will in the future be increasingly aided by our own mobile recording unit. Deputies will appreciate that one special difficulty in these broadcasts is to find at what hours the majority of country people can listen to them. The present timings are the result of our having put this question to listeners themselves.
On the entertainment side, variety poses just as many problems, but here again fresh endeavours can be reported, and some success claimed. Radio Éireann has engaged script-writers and artistes from the variety stage, enrolled its own writers and actors in its ventures, and carried out a widespread search for new talent throughout the country. Among the results has been the extended run of the "Sunday Variety" show, which is a weekly 75 minutes of popular entertainment conducted before an audience in the Phoenix Hall, Dublin. The demand for tickets has revealed the success of this show, and one noteworthy aspect of it is that each week there appear several artistes who were successful in the talent competition for beginners on which the show was based. Some of these beginners immediately graduated from radio at home to radio abroad, and from radio to the professional variety stage.
In the same field of popular entertainment I might instance the increased coverage for sport, as evidence of development. Not only have the commentaries on hurling, Gaelic football, soccer, rugby and boxing matches increased in number, but a magazine feature for sports lovers, which ranges over almost the whole scene of sport, has been successfully presented every Friday for most of the year.
One of the great secrets of all entertainment and education is to secure a high degree of participation from your audience. In broadcasting, this entails bringing listeners into the studios and sending artistes and officials out from the studios to the listeners, as well as conducting a multiplicity of competitions for which listeners will enter. I have already given examples of bringing the listeners to the studios, and our news-gatherers and outside broadcasting officers provide well-known instances of going out to the listeners. But there have been new instances this year about which I wish to say a word.
The first concerns the symphony orchestra. This combination, the first professional one ever maintained in Ireland, has continued its gratifying artistic progress, and the evidence for the statement that it is advancing musical education among our people is not to be doubted. It has recently begun to enhance its effectiveness by giving concerts outside Dublin, thus affording very many of our people their first opportunity of seeing and hearing a symphony orchestra in action. Concerts have been given in Cork, Waterford and in Maynooth College. It is hoped to give concerts from other centres during the year. Apart from the enthusiasm with which they have been received, these concerts have two gratifying features. The first is that they are made possible by the interest and efficiency of local bodies and persons; and the second that at each visit a special concert is being given for children.
These events, it is not too much to say, will sow seeds from which a rich musical harvest may grow in future years. Leaving aside the chief aim— that of stimulating the appreciation of classical or serious music in a greater number of Irish people—one has always the hope that, seated in one or more of these audiences, is a handful of boys and girls, or of young men and women, in whom the gift for musical accomplishment is dormant. Should our symphony orchestra be the means of awakening such gifts, it will more than have justified its existence. I will add that at present we are weighing the possibilities of seconding this effort by sending our light orchestra to smaller towns, where conditions demand a different technique of encouragement.
In this matter of sending out people and bringing in people, we have not neglected the Irish language. The successful Irish "Question Time"—"Tráth na gCeist"—has been taken out of the studios on several occasions; while the mobile unit has combed Gaeltacht areas—and gone abroad to Wales and Cornwall—for an enrichment of material. Competitions—one for drama especially—have enlivened the Gaelic contribution to the programmes, and we have adventured in the provision of Irish pantomime and variety. As Deputies already know, we have extended the time allotted to the news in Irish by five minutes every night, so that now we have a nightly bulletin of 15 minutes' duration. Those who are thoroughly informed, both of the exacting nature of a newsman's work and of the special difficulties of performing it in the three main dialects of Irish, will best appreciate that there is here a measure of achievement.
Criticism of Radio Éireann's contribution to the language drive, and fresh demands for additional time for programmes in Irish, are normal features of the landscape of broadcasting. It is healthy that a strong body of listeners should be watchful in this, as in any other, department of our work; but I think Radio Éireann may continue to claim that no comparable institution makes more matter for instruction and entertainment available in the Irish language—and that no comparable institution stimulates more creative activity in the language—than does Radio Éireann. In this regard, few recent developments are more promising than the frequent forays of our recording unit into Gaeltacht areas; and the equipment of our vans with tape-recording machines, which will permit of uninterrupted recording over long periods of time, will this year constitute a pipeline between Irish-speaking and English-speaking parts of Ireland, such as never hitherto existed.
Recording on magnetic tape is one of the mechanical aids to broadcasting which have most excited those who are engaged in the work. The use of these tape-machines in Radio Éireann has begun, with very gratifying results, and much more use will be made of them in the future. At its best, tape-recording is indistinguishable from "live" broadcasting, and employed with sufficient imagination and skill, it can ensure certain improvements on direct or "live" transmission. Since recording by these means will be used in the process, I may here mention that among Radio Éireann's news and features plans of the past year—some of them completed, others still to be carried out—were those for the sending of engineering and other officers to Rome to make a special series of programmes on the Holy Year. Deputies will also be interested to know that arrangements are in hand to have the Angelus Bell rung over the air each evening at 6 o'clock. It will be taken from the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin. As absolute accuracy in time is, of course, essential, we cannot depend on manual ringing, and equipment is being installed in the Pro-Cathedral for the operation of the bell automatically. Part of the gear has been manufactured by our own engineers, but we are awaiting delivery of a particular item from a specalist firm in this type of equipment.
The range of topics on which one might speak in connection with broadcasting programmes is almost unlimited, but I think I have already given sufficient indication of the alertness of this service and of its ambition and zeal in the peculiarly complicated task which it has to do, in conditions which fall short of its requirements. I therefore content myself by mentioning simply the improving quality of the drama broadcasts, the growth of exchange programmes with other countries, the employment of the microphone for health propaganda and the valuable pioneer work done in the religious field for the sick and infirm.
In concluding my statement, I wish to thank the broadcasting staff again this year for their zeal, enterprise and unremitting attention in accommodation conditions which are anything but satisfactory. I also wish to put on record my appreciation of the time so generously given to their task by the statutory Broadcasting Advisory Committee and to thank them most cordially for their valuable assistance in shaping policy in broadcasting affairs.
