tries to make its
programmes generally suitable for family audiences; but it also aims to
reflect the standards of its listeners, and some may feel that it should
try to raise those standards.

Although the Service considers that it should never give the appearance
of dictating what listeners should, or should not, hear, it has its own
auditioning standards that should satisfy the morals of the most
particular. Records must first conform with the very strict code of the
Broadcasting Service, after which they are classified as suitable for
children's sessions, for general sessions, or only for times when
children are assumed not to be listening. The Service can, and does,
reject episodes from overseas features, and in doing so experiences no
difficulty with either overseas suppliers or local advertising sponsors.
Restrictions on dollar purchases and the nonavailability of
"sponsorable" programmes from the United Kingdom curtail the
availability of commercial features, and generally restrict them to
those produced in Australia.

On the other hand, the Service points out that listeners have a wide
choice of broadcast programmes, advertised well in advance, and it
assumes that listeners will be selective in tuning in their sets, and
restrictive in not allowing their children to listen after 7 p.m. when
programmes specially suited for them cease. This assumption, however, is
not well founded. Once switched on, the radio frequently stays on, and
children are then allowed to continue listening far too long.
Consequently, they not only lose part of their essential sleep, and
sometimes even the mental state conducive to sleep, but they hear radio
programmes not intended for them.

Just when, how long, and how often, children, adolescents, and even
parents listen to the radio is something that has never been accurately
determined in New Zealand. It is well known that young children listen
after 7 p.m. and that adolescents listen until a very late hour,
particularly on holidays, and for this last-named fact no allowance is
made when the programmes are being arranged. Adolescents listening to
the latest songs stimulate the demand for popular sheet music. It is the
words of those "hits" that form the chief target for criticism
expressed to this Committee. Popular songs are transitory in nature, and
it is the tune, rather than the words, that makes an impression.

Crime serials for the young, and the not so young, are another ta