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Back-announcement

Harry Vardon, one of the great exponents of golf, was asked why he never wrote a book setting out all that he knew about it. His reason was that when he came to put it down on paper it looked so simple that ‘anyone who didn't know that much about it should not be playing the game anyway!’

It looks as though it is the same with broadcasting. Is there really any more to it than: ‘Have something to say, and say it as interestingly as you can’? Yet there are whole areas of output which have hardly been mentioned – educational programmes, light entertainment and comedy, programmes for young people, specialist minorities or ethnic groups. What about the special problems of short-wave broadcasting, or programmes for the listener who is a long way from the broadcaster? A book, like a programme, cannot tell the whole truth. What the reader, or listener, has a right to expect is that the product is ‘sold’ in an intelligible way and then remains true to those expectations. Broadcasters talk a great deal about objectivity and balance, but even more important, and more fundamental, is the need to be fair in the relationship with the listener. A broadcasting philosophy which describes itself in programme attitudes yet ignores the listener is essentially incomplete.

What then is the purpose of being in broadcasting – the aim of it all? It is not enough to say ‘I want to communicate’ – communicate what? And why? As we have seen there are several possible answers to this – to earn money, to meet the needs of the organization, to meet your own needs, to become famous, to win all the prestigious Radio Awards, or to persuade others to think as you do. But the purpose of communication is surely to provide ideas and options, and a consequent freedom of action for other people – not to reduce the scope of such action by offering a half-truth, or by weighting them with a personal, political or commercial bias. The reason for providing information, education and the relaxation of entertainment is to suggest alternative choices, to explain the implications of one against another, and having done so to allow for a freedom of thought and action. This assumes that people are capable of responding in a way which itself requires a regard for our fellow men and women.

Having announced your intentions and made your programme, as producer you must put your name to it. Programme credits are not there simply to feed the ego or as a reward for your labours. They are a vital element in the power which broadcasting confers on the communicator – personal responsibility for what is said. Many members of a team may contribute to a programme, but only one person can finally decide on the content. Good programmes cannot be made by committee. Group decisions inevitably contain compromise and a weakening of purpose and structure, but worse, they conceal responsibility. Communication that is not labelled or attributed is of little use to the person who receives it. And if your programme is savaged by a critic or scorned by detractors, first check it by the standards of quality referred to earlier, then remember the following ‘anonymous’ comment.

‘It is not the critic who counts; not the person who points out where the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms; who, at best, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls, who know neither victory nor defeat.’

Programme makers face a hundred difficulties not mentioned here, but by engaging a ‘professional overdrive’, rather than regarding them as a personal undermining, most problems can be made to take on more the aspect of a challenge than a threat. The practicalities of production are encapsulated by the well-known Greenwich time signal, whose six pips must serve as their final reminder:

1   Preparation – state the aims, plan to meet them.

2   Punctuality – be better than punctual, be early.

3   Presentation – keep the listener in mind.

4   Personal – come over as yourself, be real.

5   Punctilious – observance of all agreed systems and procedures. If there is something you don't like, do not ignore it, change it.

6   Professional – putting the interests of the listener and the broadcasting organization before your own. And the constant maintenance of an editorial judgement based on a full awareness and a competent technique.