August 19, 1922] 



NA TURE 



239 



It has been announced that the Postmaster-General 

 is in favour of subsidising the organisations which are to 

 be licensed for broadcasting purposes out of fees to be 

 collected on the licences issued in connexion with wire- 

 less receiving stations. The situation is one which 

 requires to be carefully handled, if mischief is not to be 

 done. The authority given to the Postmaster-General 

 to grant and renew licences in connexion with radio 

 receiving apparatus exists primarily, not for revenue- 

 raising purposes, but for that of effecting the registra- 

 tion of wireless installations of every kind ; a step which 

 is necessary as a measure of police precaution and also 

 for facilitating control over all individuals using radio 

 Receiving sets. Since the law requires every person 

 with a wireless installation to take out a licence, the 

 charge for the same should be kept as low as possible. 

 At the same time, it is reasonable that those who desire 

 habitually to avail themselves, for one reason or another, 

 of broadcasting services should be expected to con- 

 tribute towards the cost of the same : strictly, this 

 contribution should depend upon the extent of the user. 

 The situation is one that lends itself to treatment by 

 the grouping of the licences, on some practical basis, 

 into two easily distinguishable categories, and by a 

 differentiation in the charges to be levied on the licences 

 in these two categories. 



Now, broadcasting is essentially a luxury demand, 

 and it has to be borne in mind that there are to-day, and 

 will always be, many owners of licensed wireless instal- 

 lations who are not desirous, as a practice, of making 

 use of broadcasting services. For this reason, anything 

 in the nature of a general levy on all wireless receiving 

 stations must be avoided. On its merits, broadcasting 

 is deserving of the fullest encouragement and the greatest 

 assistance which the Government can give it, alike in 

 the interests of those who seek amusement therefrom, 

 of the research workers in this field, and of the electrical 

 industry. It seems improbable that any sum likely to 

 be raised at the present time by fees on the grant and 

 renewal of licences will go anywhere near providing the 

 contemplated annual outlay on the broadcasting 

 scheme which has been projected. It has been esti- 

 mated that an outlay of 180,000/. per annum 2 will be 

 involved in connexion with the proposed broadcasting 

 stations. Now, there are at the present time in this 

 country some 10,000 holders of licences for wireless 

 receiving installations. In view of the relativelv high 

 cost of providing complete receiving installations, an 

 increase in the number of licences may, in these days of 

 trade depression, be a slow matter ; but assuming that 

 an immediate increase may multiply their number 

 tenfold, even so, approximately 2I. per annum would, 

 on a flat-rate basis, have to be levied on every licence, 



2 See Nature for August 5, p. 197. 

 NO. 2/55, VOL. I IO] 



in addition to the registration fee, if the whole annual 

 cost of the broadcasting stations is to be met in this 

 way. There is, however, a serious risk that an annual 

 contribution on this scale may have the effect of 

 retarding materially the rate of the growth in the 

 number of private wireless installations. 



In these circumstances, it would seem that the 

 licensed organisations will be well advised to endeavour 

 to raise the annual revenue they require largely from 

 audiences attracted to public entertainments promoted 

 and run under their auspices : evidence exists tending 

 to show that large audiences can be attracted to broad- 

 casting entertainments of a high class. The licensed 

 organisations can, of course, at the same time, raise 

 additional revenue by hiring out wireless receiving 

 installations for entertainment purposes, by sales .of 

 apparatus outright, and by other means. It is in 

 relation to the carrying out of this wider policy, which 

 caters for the needs of all classes interested in radio- 

 telegraphy, that the Government can best help in 

 popularising broadcasting and aid in promoting the 

 commercial success of licensed organisations rather than 

 in the attempt to subsidise them out of moneys raised 

 by means of fees charged on licences, the amount of 

 which may, more than likely, prove extremely dis- 

 appointing. For example, the Government can, on the 

 technical side, help the licensed organisations materially 

 by allotting to them the necessary number of suitable 

 radio wave-lengths to enable them to carry out their 

 programmes, and in many other incidental ways : it 

 can also to some extent afford them assistance on the 

 commercial side by causing all applications for enter- 

 tainment licences to be collected by them for trans- 

 mission to the Postmaster General, a course the adop- 

 tion of which would provide the licensed organisations 

 with opportunities for selling broadcasting services, 

 whilst at the same time promoting genuine competition 

 in this field. 



In connexion with broadcasting, other rights are 

 threatened, such, for example, as copyright and patent 

 right. In all the circumstances of the present situation, 

 it behoves the Government then to keep itself as free 

 as possible from responsibility in connexion with the 

 details of the radio broadcasting services. This it will 

 do so long as it confines its role to that of a licensing 

 authority exercising general control and supervision 

 over the purely wireless situation, and by allowing, in 

 collateral matters, the old doctrine to prevail, that 

 where the likelihood of the invasion of the legal rights 

 of others is involved, every subject in the realm acts at 

 his own peril and must be held personally answerable 

 for his own deeds to him who establishes in due course 

 of law that he has suffered an injury from an actionable 

 wrontr at the hands of another. 



