Abstract
WE are afraid that next month will be an anxious time for the future of international broadcasting. Eight countries, including some not far distant from Great Britain, have refused to ratify the plan agreed to by the majority at Lucerne. It is highly probable that some of them will not accept the new wavelengths suggested to them. Parts of the wave band of broadcasting will therefore become useless to many owners of receiving sets. The interference also is much increased by the excessive power used by many of the transmitting stations. Luxembourg, which uses the most powerful broadcasting transmitter outside Russia, is now at work on an unauthorised wave-length. Another difficulty, but not a serious one, is the use of broadcasting for advertising. The attempt to prevent this by the B.B.C. is neutralised to a certain extent by foreign transmissions. Several French stations will limit this in the future, but we suppose that Athlone will continue its advertisements of Irish sweepstakes, a practice forbidden in Great Britain. More objectionable is the increasing use of broadcasting in languages other than that of the country of the transmitting station for propaganda purposes. The new 500 kw. station of the Comintern at Moscow is apparently used for transmitting Communist propaganda in English, French, German and Italian at a strength which oenables it to be heard by a small set almost anywhere in Europe. This may lead to retaliatory measures which will not improve the hearing of broadcasting. In Luxembourg and Alsace-Lorraine, the emissions are of necessity in both French and German. Tho Electrician of November 24 suggests that this demonstrates the impossibility nowadays of building a ring fence against new ideas and may possibly in the long run have a salutary effect.
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Future of International Broadcasting. Nature 132, 848 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/132848b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/132848b0