Abstract
FOR the fourth successive year, a radio broadcast tour of the Empire was conducted on Christmas Day by the British Broadcasting Corporation, with the assistance of the radio telephone services of the Post Office. The result was a great tribute to the technical skill and the organising ability of both administrations. On this occasion, the listener played the part of an eavesdropper on a series of almost private telephone conversations between individuals or families in various parts of the British Isles and other groups in Canada, India, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The longest communication link covered on this occasion was employed for an exchange of greetings between two children in the London studio and their grandfather at Wellington, New Zealand. The technically minded listener must tremble to think of the number of electrical circuits used in such a programme and of the possibilities of faults and breakdowns which do not seem to occur. The more mathematically minded may pause to consider whether the number of listeners on such an occasion may be truly termed an astronomical figure. The ordinary person may still have cause to wonder at the fact that when parts of England are covered with snow, Australians can thoroughly enjoy surf-bathing on Christmas Day. Will this wonder be dispelled or increased when television, which is already poking its nose round the corner, transforms this Empire broadcast programme into a pictorial tour with a suitable running commentary ?
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” Round the Empire” Christmas Broadcast. Nature 137, 25 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137025a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137025a0