Mud Requiring to be Slung Department

New Zealand as we are well aware is a small country and it would be quite impossible for us to support in reasonable financial comfort two journals of the Broadcasting Service. We did it once but we may not be able to do it again for several decades—even if newsprint was available.

To put it plainly the Listener avoids saying nothing. There is the short story in the New Writing tradition, the useful musical analysis, the Shepherd's Calender and the reviews. Aunt Daisy has a corner and so does Things to Come. None of the other articles, contributed or staff produced ever reach great heights or plumb great depths. It is all very regrettable.

By contrast with the English Listener our journal is a light affair. This is due to necessity, the shotgun wedding of programmes, N.Z.B.S. news and culture (spare the word.) The English Listener does not have to try and combine these elements and worries only a little about the ordinary ordinary reader. For that reason the B.B.C produces a journal which is, proportionately, the meat for very few. In New Zealand a Listener along these lines would requier nothing more nor less than a subsidy which is not fashionable politically.

Nevertheless it does not seem necessary for every reader of the Listener to have to bow down to the average taste of the average reader. Profundity is foreign to it and reprinted talks, though all the B.B.C. Listener may be, are at least preferable once in a while to an overdose of light and airy news. That those who really read the Listener and also really listen to the wireless some material which provokes the intellect was clear enough last year.

Mr. Austin has great controversial possibilities but they are as nothing compared with the letter war which raged about the subject of Evolution and Philosophy. The point is not that the controversey was religious for it was not; but that it was not merely a discussion about Mr. Austin's great uncle or the proportion of jazz to classical music.

The journal pays the Service. The advertising content is high and although the circulation may have decreased recently—as rumour has it—it cannot be lower than 20,000. If this is the case surely an attempt could be made to provide more think-age and less fact. As for the Editorials—Puff Sir. Pure Puff.

The Broadcasting Service having been put into a more rational organisation its journal shows no signs at present of mirroring the change. It has become a fetish with those who desire culture for the mass of the people to land those projects which appear to be cultured but avoid fundamental questions. I do not wish to suggest that the Listener set itself up as a journal of philosophy or a foreign affairs commentator but I would criticise the content. There is no need for it indulge in bitter argument but there is every need for some articles dealing with topics demanding more mental exercise.

If in every alternative issue one of the talks broadcast by the YC stations could be reprinted a step forward would have been taken. At the same time the book reviewers could be alloted a little more space and Radio Review and Things to Come a little less. Perhaps it would not be too much to suggest that the advertisers be cut down too—or would that mean a financial loss each year?

A high proportion of the two thousand students at this University read the Listener. Surely they are not satisfied with the present trifle.