First published in New Zealand TV Weekly June 27 1966.
AUCKLAND
Prospects of pirate Radio Hauraki snaffling up personality announcers hitherto rejected by NZBC are causing studio moguls to have second thoughts about job vacancies Pirate planners, incidentally, see a rich revenue source in liquor and cigarette advertising banned by NZBC ..... Sydneysiders have followed local viewers in panning Dinah Lee’s A Swingin’ Safari style baggy gear and merino hair-do. One critic suggested she would need a guide dog if the growth continued..... Sight gag of the week was Merv Smith’s hastily wiped leer of enjoy- ment following a Miss World news clip ..... If schoolteachers are as busy as they claim, how come Max Cryer pops up in extra-mural activities to such an extent? Mink-garbed, he did a “Danny Kaye” with a group of folk-singing kiddies in the videoed Festival revue ..... 15-year old Mary Clark, making her first public appearance, was nervous but natural in this show ..... Bryan Easte setting some sort of production record with 21 shows in three weeks. Anybody else working up in the Brick Towers? ..... Area coverage of the Lions tour has been assigned to the busy Reynolds TV studios.... Same outfit has come up with a tricky one-man camera-mike gadget which would keep the operator busy but be a godsend in crowded corners ..... The Shirley Maddock four-parter Tall Trees and the Gold, concerning the early days of gum and gold diggers, has finished editing with Reynolds TV and gone to Wellington for sound dubbing. Depend on a first-class editing job with former U.K. film man John Cook on the assignment.
Wellington
WNTV1’s Town and Around team seems to be expanding. Edwina Myers from Auckland is an attractive and competent addition to the report- ing team. Recent new faces among the panel of interviewers on the team have been Colin Broadley (who made his name as compere of Auckland’s In The Groove a year or two ago) and Peter Sinclair (who shone as front man for Wellington’s teenage show Let's Go). Viewers’ reaction to sight of these talents being used only occasionally-let’s see them more often. Town and Around is said to be costing £500 a week. Maybe NZBC hasn’t any pennies left over for some new pop shows-or is it that the shortage of producers is beginning to pinch? ..... Note to producers Terris (of Topic) and Bick (of Compass)-wouldn’t it be a change to hear a genuine New Zealand accent among all those academics dragged in from the universities ..... WNTV1 is to put on the new children’s audience participation programme Who in the World?-originally it was to come from AKTV2, but the producer lined up for it, Ian Watkins, is too busy putting the heave into Yo Heave Ho.
CHRISTCHURCH
There is no evidence to support the view that TV is responsible for all the social ills of the nation, according to Finance Minister H. R. Lake. The results of research into the effects of television so far seem to be inconclusive,
he told the annual meeting of the Televiewers’ Association Canterbury, Inc ...... Other Ministerial news: In Christchurch and Dunedin additional and improved facilities for sound and television will be established eventually ..... If the correspondence received by one local newspaper TV critic is any indication, it would appear that most Channel 3 viewers could do without Danny Kaye on Saturday nights. This is another example of too much spoiling the flavour ..... A quick personal survey reveals that This is Rudolph Nureyev would be a welcome repeat on CHTV3 (what’s the betting we don’t get it?) ..... Christchurch cinema managers were the only citizens with broad smiles when The Avengers bowed out with Emma’s Dance of the Seven Veils the other Wednesday evening ..... Graham Kerr is off to Australia for four months-and who cares now that he had decided to be “The Great Entertainer” instead of the chummy chef he used to be. Still his departure does highlight the fact that there is not too much local talent about (or if there is, Channel 3 has not been purveying it lately).
DUNEDIN
Gardening expert Doug Donaldson was confined to bed and had to miss one show completely. Better “watch the weather” yourself next time, Doug ..... DNTV2’s studios have added some impressive equipment- but nothing to do with television. Just inside the main entrance is now installed a bright red and impossibly complex-looking unit identified as an "automatic sprinkler brigade inlet connection.” . . . . We’re wondering how CHTV3 is reacting to the stockings we saw on producer Linda McDougall just before she made her transfer effective. Striped they were, zebra black and white, round and round "and round ..... Now that Linda’s gone, Rod Cornelius will take over production of DNTV2’S children’s shows. Good practice for him, because he’s going to become a first-time Daddy late in the Spring ..... While compering his final “live” telecast in the local O.B. series Here and Now, Dougal Stevenson ran into an entirely unrehearsed situation. The locale was the Lookout Point Fire Station, and slap bang in the middle of proceedings what should liven up the show but an authentic fire alarm! For just a moment Dougal’s customary aplomb was shattered and he considered cutting the programme then and there (or “here and now"), but it was just a chimney fire which was attended to by a unit not involved in the telecast. And the show went on, livelier than had been anticipated.
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