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The Gramophone, June, 1929

important, unprej,udiced criticism week by week of talks that are given, music that is being played, dramas that are being acted, personalities that are being revealed at Savoy Hill and other stations at home and abroad, would have an interest for the radio public, and if the criticisms of such a paper were written in the same spirit and with the same equipment as the criticisms month by month in THE GRAMOPHONE, I venture to think that they would exercise a valuable influence in the consolidation of a sane, sober and independent public opinion. At present people who get up to talk into the microphone are able to feel that no matter what nonsense they talk nobody is going to take them to task for i t . One person will talk about novels, another will talk about plays, a third will talk about films, and I am anxious that people who have so much power to affect the opinion of the public should be themselves exposed to searching criticism. I have already had so many examples in my correspondence of the intense interest with which the progress of radio is followed throughout the country that I am most anxious to take advantage of this wealth of communication and do all that I possibly can in my own humble way to prevent i ts being swamped by the herd opinion that so large and important a part of the contemporary Press deliberately encourages. Should such a paper as I hope to start come into actual existence, i t will be bound by none of the conventions which at present rule the periodical Press. The Radio Critic would regard itself as the voice of· the immense audience which day and night listens in; but i t would be prejudiced in favour of the more intelligent portion of i t , and apart from the law of libel no bounds would be set to the sphere of i ts comment and criticism. If, for instance, political speakers take the risk of facing the microphone, they must face i t irrespective of their politics as radio personalities, and as radio personalities The Radio Critic would judge them. The offensive weapon I should employ as Editor would be ridicule, and ridicule is badly needed at the present day. Ridicule will mean entertainment, and unless I believed that The Radio Critic were going to entertain and divert i ts readers, I should not be much interested in producing i t . At the same time, I should aim at making i t pleasantly informative, and even usefully instructive. For obvious reasons I cannot divulge too far in advance the various features I have in my mind to make The Radio CTitic readable from cover to cover, but I may say that everybody's interests and hobbies "rill be looked after. The Radio Critic will never be merely destructive, and I should aspire to make i t as much respected for i ts imaginative and construct ive ideas as feared for i ts satire and ridicule. And I pledge my reput~tion that i t would not be another of those scissors-and-paste productions which already clutter up the bookstalls.

The existence of The Radio Oritic would make no difference to THE GRA1\WPHONE, except that I might feel tempted to transfer some of the electrical columns of our experts to the younger brother, for though The Radio OTitic would be a non-technical paper i t would have to devote at least a couple of i ts proposed thirty-two pages to the discussion and criticism of wireless apparatus. And that brings me .to another point, which readers of THE GRAMOPHONE will particularly appreciate. I t is high t ime that some criticism should be devoted to wireless products, and that such criticism should not hesitate to tell the general public in a clear and straightforward manner what products really are worthy of tbeir attention. In saying this I am not impugning the capability or sincerity of existing wireless periOdicals, but I do think that right through the country radio suffers at present from inferior reproduction, and that right through the country noise, mere noise, is becoming a most dangerous .idol. Let me say here that this is equally true of gramophones, and that at the present rate at which the ears of the public are being debauched by distortions of music and speech i t will not be long before all that has been gained from the cultivation of musical taste within the last five years will be lost.

I hope I have been able to indicate the kind of paper I want The Radio 01"itic to be; and now let us ask what chance i t would have of material success. Can we count on obtaining for i t soon after i ts start four times the cirC):tlation of THE GRAl\:[oPHONE? I f we can, there is no need to worry about anything more. Do you readers of THE GRAl\IOPHONE believe that each of you can secure three regular readers besides each of yourselves ~ If you can, success is assured. Can each of you, to speak in terms of hard cash, guarantee twopence a week from yourselves and sixpence a week from three of your friends? If you can, success is assured. But now what is a more searching question has to be asked. How many of you are prepared to back your confidence in yourselves as canvassers for circulation by taking shares in The Radio C1·itic ? This would mean investing a sum of not less than five pounds and not more than one hundred pounds, thougb I may add ·that if any of our readers feels inspired by tbis preliminary talk to invest more the London Editor or I will be deUghted to get into toucb with him!

I am quite aware that, in setting out to start a new paper in this way, I am breaking all the rules of company promoting, and i t may be that by putt ing my cards down on tbe table like tbis I am defeating my own object. However, having successfully launched one paper on a successful career after being treated by nine people out of ten beforeband like a lunatic, I feel a sentimental desire that the readers of the first paper should help me to start a second. I want to make i t a co-operative