CANADA'S RADIO PROBLEM

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 58, Issue 250, 22 November 1929, Page 4

CANADA'S RADIO PROBLEM

AMERICAN DOMINATION. Canadian broadcasting is so overshadowed by programmes of all kinds from across the border that the injury by a Royal commission, now sitting. comes as no surprise. The commission has been appointed to inquire how broadcasting can be administex-ed in the Dominion without its beiug used bv commercial corporations in the United States for propaganda. Sir John Aird, speaking after the consideration of the matter by the commission, stated that "90 per cent. of the entertainment provided for Canadian listeners which comes across from the United States is direct American propaganda." There are at least 600 American stations which can be received in different part^ of Canada, some of them so close to the border as to enable them to "blanket" the adjoining Canadian stations. To counteract the influence of thp American stations, Mr E. A. Weir, director of radio to the Canadian National Railways, which put up a chain of stations to provided entertainment of railway passengers acrosg Canada, told the commission that his organisation would provide programmes for Canadian listeners independent of the American stations should the Governrnent so desire. The consensus of opiniou in Canada is that there should be a board to control national broadcasting on tbe lines of tbe Britisli Broadcasting Corporation. It was further claimed by influencial witnesses that sucli a board was absolutely necessary if Canadian radio was not to be dominated by American influences.