Radio and the technology of the common law in 1930s Australia: Victoria Park racing V Taylor revisited

Abstract

This article examines how radio broadcasting in Australia in the 1930s challenged the monopolies of racing clubs who exercised tight control over access to the racecourse, supported by existing laws, with minimal media reporting in the form of scores scratched on boards at the racecourse and newspaper summaries after the event. In the 1937 case of Victoria Park Racing v Taylor, commercial radio emerged as a disruptive force that changed the way races were experienced by audiences, from attendance at the racecourse to listening to a contemporaneous report of the event as it was being played on a radio receiving set. The different approaches to the ʻnovelʼ practice confronting the court reveal..