Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982), Wednesday 17 February 1960, page 68


The P.M.G.'s private eye

• With the spread of television all over the Common-wealth, television licences are a million-pound business

to the Postmaster-General's Department.

AT the end of 1959,

there were 737,855 licensed TV receivers in the Commonwealth. This

represents, at £5 a pop, the pretty sum of £3,689,275.

When the money runs into millions in any business, every-one wants more, and the P.M.G.'s department is no exception. They're out in a big way after the pirates—tele-viewers who own unlicensed receivers.

It is no wonder, when sur-vey authorities put the pirate

sets down at more than double the licensed ones. All of which runs up the figures into un-dreamed of sums that would

be of great assistance to the P.M.G.'s vast TV expenditure.

The Department employs many methods to track down the pirates, but they have had great success with their latest weapon, the television receiver detector van, a maniacal con-traption that is real psycho-logical warfare.

The van is just an ordinary enough looking panel van with

three aerials.

It has a crew of two, a driver and a P.M.G. technical detective. Wearing head-phones and working the equip-ment inside, the technician can detect a TV set on the dials with no trouble at all.

The detective picks up a signal which shows there are

TV receivers in the area and the three aerials act as direc-tion finders that send the de-tective off like a bloodhound

on the right trail.

Sometimes he finds a licensed receiver, at other times a pirate, but the van always leads him to a TV receiver.

Personally I think the P.M.G. was un-psychological

when he put the scientific equipment inside. Just the sight of it would be enough

to make me answer the door

with my £5 in my hand—if I was a pirate.

The vans are in use in Melbourne and Sydney. They will be used in other capital cities, it is believed, as they become available.

Licensed sets throughout the Commonwealth are increasing month by month at an almost standard rate of 27,500.

Latest available figures show the State licences as: New South Wales, 358,544; Vic-toria, 307,950; Queensland, 27,590; South Australia, 34,060; Western Australia, 9621; and Tasmania, 90.

On the figures, Queensland and South Australia are very

TV-conscious.

In Queensland, where TV started officially last August 16, licensed sets numbered 27,528 in just over 4 months, a figure it took six months to reach in N.S.W.

In South Australia it took

THE PRIVATE EYE AT WORK

By NAN MUSGROVE

only three months for licences to reach this figure.

The P.M.G. has put the

vans on show at a number of

country shows, where they have been a very popular ex-

hibit. ★ ★ ★

SYDNEY Channel 9's new

edition of the Late Show (Fridays, IO p.m.), with Joe Martin and George Wallace, jun., sharing the honors as star-ring comperes, was good TV. It was a smooth production

that went without a hitch and

promises wonderfully fpr the future.

George Wallace, jun., stole the show. He's a really funny man. He even made me enjoy the most incredible under-water ballet I have ever seen.

I know now it was presented as a serious contribution to the arts. But at the time I thought it was a turn and that Wallace was the large and rather wobbly starfish that teetered through the piece.

Anyway, thanks to him, I

watched carefully, waiting for

the denouement which I ex-

pected to be King Neptune unmasking Wallace and prod-ding him out of his kingdom

with his trident. If the al ture is questionable there is a big laugh in the new Late Show. I recommend it. ★ ★ ★

BIG bouquet for A.B.C.

TV for an entrancing hour, "Dock Brief," a live show

that originated in Sydney and will be seen in all other States.

It has only two characters — an old, incompetent barrister called Morgenhall, who has

never had a brief until he was

chosen to defend the other character in the play, a bird-

seed dealer called Fowle, who

has murdered his wife.

Moray Powell played Mor-

genhall. Reg Lye played

Fowle.

The play is pathetic, it is

witty, it is comic. In the

hands of these two splendid

actors it became embarrass-ingly real as they discussed the case, imagined its defence and outcome, and the fame it would bring.

"Dock Brief" is TV at its entertaining best. ________________________