Tim and Nick's Picks, for several decades after World War II, broadcasting in West Germany and several other central and Western European countries (including the UK) was entirely state-financed and thus "public" as we call it here. And throughout those countries there were stations devoted primarily to music broadcasting, that didn't just spin records 24/7. The stations had their own orchestras, chamber music ensembles, dance bands, and singers (both classical and non-classical) on staff--plus cadres of engineers who were really trained as engineers, not just adopting that title for themselves.
Live broadcasts and live recordings and discussions with performers and composers were made every day, and the public tuned in and listened. Listening wasn't just a matter of which canned, commercial product you chose from a menu; you more likely knew what was going on in the world of music and who the creative minds were. Imagine if the norm were for radio and television to have no commercials, and to be legally responsible for balanced, objective reporting of news and public events. The public expected (and in my opinion, got) much more from their broadcasters in those years than we do in the United States today--by far, I would say.
Since this is a forum about recording, let me also point out that this all has a great deal to do with the microphones that we still use today. European broadcasters couldn't just go to their neighborhood Radio Shack and buy whatever was on the shelves; the broadcasting organizations in the various countries had research laboratories which specified and tested all the recording, mixing and broadcasting equipment used by their broadcasters. These research laboratories also designed some equipment and licensed it to be manufactured and sold by established manufacturers. In Austria that meant AKG; in Germany that included both Neumann and Schoeps, and later (after re-unification), Microtech Gefell.
Thus the broadcast organizations as a unit had enormous influence on the types of equipment (including microphones) that were developed during the post-war decades. I think it's safe to say that Neumann, Schoeps, AKG, Beyer, Sennheiser, Studer and many other European manufacturers of professional audio equipment large and small would not have gotten through the 1950s without this government-supported broadcasting during the years after the war.
--best regards
Topic: Schoeps Pricing Update - April 8, 2011 (Read 5864 times)