Radio: Huckster’s Voice

Every ten years, a commission appointed by the Postmaster General looks into British radio & TV and makes recommendations on future policy. Last week, while the report of the current commission was still in the hands of the printers, some of the news leaked out and caused flustered fluttering in the staid, non-commercial offices of BBC.

The commissioners, after taking a long look at the rising costs of TV, had decided it was too big a load for government-financed (but not controlled) BBC to carry. Its recommendation: let the job be done by private enterprise, which would, of course, finance the project by selling advertising time. Radio, with its more modest budget, would remain unsponsored.

Though not binding, the commission’s suggestions ordinarily carry great weight. Could Britons look forward to singing commercials, marching and dancing cigarettes, animated breakfast foods and the syrupy, all-pervading voice of the product-plugging announcer?

For next week, BBC announced a TV show that any sponsor would give his eyeteeth to have. Its star—if she turns up: ginger-haired, hazel-eyed Catherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII. Since she was beheaded in 1542, Catherine has wandered each night about her former bedchamber in Hampton Court Palace, has become one of the most celebrated ghosts in all England. While waiting hopefully for her to appear, a BBC mobile unit will televise the Queen’s treasured possessions.