The full amount of the Vote for the Broadcasting Service for the current financial year is £27,355—a reduction of £1,700 on the amount voted last year. Expenditure last year was £29,050 and receipts amounted to £12,271 from licénces; £26,000 (approximately) from the import duty on wireless apparatus; and miscellaneous receipts £96, making a gross revenue of £38,367 and, after deduction of cost of collection of 10 per cent.. net receipts of £34,531, giving a surplus of £5,481, resulting entirely from increased yield of the import duty.
Five thousand additional licences were issued during the year, making a total of 24,000—or eight licences per 1,000 of the population. The number of licences for the current year is estimated at 32,000. Increase beyond this figure will depend mainly upon the development of the service, but an eventual total of 60,000 licences or one in fifty of the population is probably a conservative figure.
The question of development is receiving close attention. We wish to bring easy reception of Irish broadcasting within the reach of as many of the people as possible. There are, however, serious problems, technical and otherwise, to be overcome. The wavelength question is one on which international co-operation is essential, but various alternative schemes of giving a service to increased numbers of listeners are now being carefully examined. The delay in development is unavoidable, but it might eventually prove to be an advantage, as we will be able to profit by the experience of other countries in dealing with the problems involved, and thus ensure that the scheme of development adopted will result in the maximum technical efficiency and give the best service to the public.
Expenditure in excess of current revenue will be necessary for development, but it is believed that any money provided would be recovered from broadcasting receipts within a few years.
The Vote now before the House provides only for the Dublin and Cork Stations, and it will probably be necessary to present a Supplementary Estimate covering development proposals later. There has been a considerable improvement in the general standard of programmes during the past year. Whilst entertainment must, perhaps, remain the chief function of broadcasting, it is the policy, as far as practicable, to direct and develop public taste by always giving in the programme something a little better than the average listener wants and so to create gradually a demand for the best in everything, whilst at the same time providing a sufficiency of light entertainment for simple recreation and amusement.
Special features of the musical programme have been a series of symphony concerts given in public in Dublin. Many operas have been given in full, including "Il Trovatore,""La Traviata,""Lucia di Lammermuir,""Lurline,""The Rose of Castille" and "Les Cloches de Corneville"; also a very fine rendering of Hayden's Oratorio, "The Creation," was given. Much development of these special performances is hoped for next season. We have also relayed occasionally items of B.B.C. programmes, such as the big symphony concerts and operas, which it would be clearly impossible to produce in our own stations. A relay of American stations was tried recently and proved fairly successful. It is hoped also to arrange for occasional relays of Continental programmes next winter, when the conditions will be more favourable than during the summer.
As regards other programme items, it may be of interest to mention that a novelty last winter was a debate on Free Trade versus Protection. It is hoped to arrange in future for similar debates between well known persons on subjects of general public interest. The educational side of broadcasting has also been developed, but it is hoped to do much more in this respect in the future, both in the way of adult and juvenile education. Domestic economy subjects have been fully covered in the programmes, and a series of lectures on health and hygiene has been given.
A special course of "talks" on farming subjects is being broadcast by specialists of the Department of Agriculture, and extensive market reports for farmers are given weekly. Special prominence is, of course, given in programmes to the Irish language, Irish history, music and all subjects of importance to the development of the national characteristics of our people.
The Broadcasting Advisory Committee has been very helpful in regard to programme construction, and its recommendations have been adopted, so far as possible. There has, of course, been criticism of programmes, but every broadcasting service has to face much the same kind of criticism. It arises mainly from the fact that it is impossible for even the richest broadcasting organisation in the world to please everybody all the time. The money available for broadcasting in the Free State amounts to a little over £30,000, as compared with income approaching a million pounds of big broadcasting organisations in other countries.
Differences in taste about cancel out —as many people like as dislike almost every programme item, and it remains, therefore, the very difficult task of the directors and the Advisory Committee to arrange programmes to please at least most of the people most of the time. It can be claimed that steady, all-round progress has been made, but it is admitted that it will probably be slow until the problem in regard to station development has been solved.
