Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER 37 schools of the type and containing children of the age for which the series is planned). The schools in this sample are circularised with a questionnaire designed to bring in the required information. The Council has no official "right" to ask for information from schools, and it is therefore an entirely voluntary gesture on the part of the teacher to fill in and return this questionnaire. In the last few years teachers have been spending a notorious amount of time filling in forms. They have nevertheless been most generous in their response to these circularisations. For the !0 "postal surveys" made by the Council in 1945 the returns were in most cases 80 per cent or more of the sample. From these returns it is possible to draw conclusions concerning the whole potential audience within a known degree of probability. An example will serve to show the kind of background picture for school broadcasting which the postal survey helps to create. A survey was made to examine the use of the Geography series of 1944 45. This series was planned for children of about 13 in what were then called elementary schools. The sample of schools included all types of elementary school with children of 13, but no grammar schools. The following is a brief summary of the results. It was calculated that the most probable number of schools using the series in the potential audience of 7,200 ivas about 4,000, with about 40 per cent of these istening regularly. The number of children istening was in the region of 150,000 and these were distributed fairly evenly over all three years of the senior age-range, i.e. 11 plus to 13 plus, and organised mostly in classes of mixed intelligence. The Geography syllabus for any one school was as likely to deal with any one part of the world as any other at any point of the senior age-range and likely, too, to cover two or more continents in a single year. The Geography teaching (including the use of the broadcast) took place as a rule within 80 minutes a week. It follows that a Geography series on any particular region of the world might find (as far as the choice is dictated by subject matter) an audience anywhere between the first and third years of the secondary modern school and in the corresponding part of the unreorganised school. As may be seen from the evidence, the Geographyseries for 1944 45 did in fact find an audience of this wide age-range. It would therefore seem that two courses lie open: either to emphasise to teachers, that although younger children may listen, the broadcasts are planned to suit the needs of 1 3-year-olds or to attempt to plan broadcasts suitable for all children between 1 1 plus and 13 plus. It is known from much experience that a series intended specially for 13-year-olds must be designed and presented differently from one intended for the whole senior age-range. The latter is less easy to provide. The differences in outlook and intellectual capacity of the listening classes must be kept in mind from the earliest stages of making a broadcast. Here is perhaps a point for film makers to consider. Though the teaching film is a more expensive and less flexible instrument than the school broadcast, close investigation into the suitability of teaching films may show a similar need for fine adjustments to age level. The development of these methods of collecting evidence has, as I mentioned earlier, been limited by the war. But it is hoped by this method of sampling to build a large-scale picture of the listening habits of the audience, which as far as it is possible to find out, shall be reasonably accurate. This picture is confined to certain background details of fact which can be investigated by post and is always a little out of date. There have still to be devised means of forecasting and striking a balance between the needs of sections of the audience during the period of change foreshadowed by the Education Act. Ad hoc study in the classroom by teachers and officials already provides lively information for those making the broadcasts, and offers an interesting field for further development, and there are possibilities, so far little explored, of detached research under controlled conditions which it is hoped may before long be conducted, perhaps in universities. But whatever may be the future growth of research in the field of school broadcasting, it cannot be emphasised too strongly that there is one essential on which depends the whole structure — the active co-operation of the teaching profession. This will be true as well for research into teaching films. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF FILMS PRODUCED BY THE M.O.I. IN 1945 FOOTAGE OF FILMS 1940(«) 1941 1942 1943 1444 1945 Five-minute Fifteen-minute General T Distribution General NT Distribution Instructional and Training Mainly Overseas Wholly Overseas Trailers Total Colonial Film Unit(rf) Acquired 5-minuteand 15-minute films 13,791 25,113 20.141 — — — 59,045 — 1,316 15,216 16.041 14.832 47,405 16,673 9.228 22,506 33,833 17,524 31,165 130,929 23,545 7,890 41,457 24,010 39,572 55,216 191,690 4,109 10,280 30,552 38,568 18,713 17,850 120,072 16,383 15,081 5,908 6,179 43,551 3,100 1 1 ,093 22,944 43,115 17,307 8,413 105,972 1,600 3,000(6) 4,2500?) 5.750(c) 5.500(c) 4,625 20,100 62,818 66,604 159,519 175,613 120,565 138,280 723,399 11,919 7,836 13,600 13,198 17.844 33,107 97,504 1,135 6,657 11,353 ,312 887 21,344 («) Includes 3,130 ft. of T. Releases delivered in 1939. (b) Average length— 200 ft. (d) 16 mm. productions calculated at equivalent 35 mm. length. NUMBER OF FILMS 1940(a) 1941 1942 1943 (c) Average length — 125 ft. 1944 1945 Total Five-minute Fifteen-minute General T Distribution General NT Distribution Instructional and Training Mainly Overseas Wholly Overseas Trailers Total Colonial Film Unit Acquired 5-minute and 15-minute films 20 37 29 — — — 86 — 1 12 12 12 37 14 5 7 8 5 8 47 23 7 35 21 28 39 153 6 12 24 27 13 12 94 12 7 6 2 27 3 10 18 39 15 6 91 8 15 34 46 51 37 191 74 86 160 160 130 116 762 8 10 16(6) 30(b) 36(b) 30(6) 130 10 (<i) Includes 2 films for T release delivered in 1939. (h) Including productions in 16 mm.