ABSTRACT

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.