From the New Zealand TV Weekly. June 12, 1967
Auckland
How correct can your timing be? Ran into NZBC administrator Jack Metcalf and asked how his wife, Cherry Raymond, was making out with the Close-Up series she is doling on New Zealanders in Australia. Fine,
said he. She is doing a tape with Ernie Baume tomorrow.
That was the first he had heard that Mr Baume had collapsed and died the night before. However, Cherry had moved up her schedules and completed the tape the day before his untimely death. Result was a keen demand for the tape's use from the ABC. Hope the NZBC doesn't hold the tape back from local screening. It could be a posthumous tribute to a quite remarkable New Zealand journalist who had also become a noted TV figure across the Tasman . . . . . Evidently the NZBC is not planning any repeat of the Cheesman Singers this year and leader Ossie has reluctantly disbanded the group . . . . . Erstwhile Songs at Twilight pianist Reg Morgan has his heart set on a homeward trip to Wales. Something to keep his mind on when piano tinkling for the patrons of a suburban pub . . . . . Addition of Rae Pritchard to the Town and Around team should give the show more balance as well as providing an experienced interviewer. Wonder whether Rae will vie with Barbara Magner for the kookie spots . . . . . Should imagine that the Southern show Coming into Line will prompt racing enthusiasts to ask for more of their favourite sport on TV. Considering the fact that racing is just about a national religion, it is rather surprising that we haven't seen more exploitation of the programme potential in its many facets . . . . . Although Dinah Lee is reported to be the forces favourite with the Aussie troops in Vietnam, she attracted surprisingly little attention when she came home. Maybe the fans have become fickle . . . . . Max Cryer talking again after a several months silence for medical reasons . . . After radio experience in Hamilton, Masterton and locally, Gwen Perry has broken into television continuity announcing.
Wellington
Saturday night viewing, which has been patchy lately, should take an upswing in July when the Dean Martin Show will go into a peak hour slot. Barrie Parkin, at Head Office TV programmes, says that there are 30 in the new series of Dean just purchased . . . NZBC is also looking at the highly regarded British series Man in a Suitcase, which stars Richard Bradford as an ex-spy turned bounlty hunter, Cathy Come Home, a drama about a young couple's search for a home in Britain, and The Ratcatchers, a suspense series . . . One of the best programmes seen here recently was the Panorama interview with the British Prime Minister, Mr Harold Wilson, on the Common Market issue. This was television at its most interesting. Congratulations to the NZBC for screening it at the earliest moment possible, even if it meant dropping Compass for a week . . . News that Austin Mitchell is going off to Britain on a Nuflield Fellowship later in the year has thrown some TV critics into a tizz. Seems they think he is the only political commentator on the scene. There is one group of people who will be quite happy to see him go. They are Labour MP's, including the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Norman Kirk, who have declined to be interviewed by Austin. That in itself is passing strange, for Austiin has never disguised the fact of his sympathy with the Labour Party aims. Perhaps his questions are too penetrating? . . . Barry Swift emerged as a capable TV interviewer during the rail strike. Some might have said his sympathies were obviously with the striking railwaymen, but generally his questions were sharp and to the point. He followed up well too. It is likely we will see more of him on NZBC Reports . . . Some of the hardest working people on TV these days must be the teams preparing the On Camera programmes aimed mainly at women in the afternoon. They must really be on the ball to keep up the flow of material . . . Philip Sherry, a relatively new face among TV newsreaders on WNTV1, impresses as one of the smoothest and most unobtrusive readers so far on the channel.
CHRISTCHURCH
Miss Doreen Neale, who is in charge of children's TV programmes, was in Christchurch mid-May to interview newcomers for the Christchurch series of Speak Up. Already under way in Auckland, Speak Up replaces Top Mark and is a panel programme which aims to find out youngsters' opinions and interpretations of past and current events. As elsewhere ten boys and girls have been selected for the ten programmes to he produced locally . . . . The title of On Camera has been given to the live women's personality programmes to be run on all channels from 3.30 in 4 p.m. They will run on the commercial days, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and it looks at though Julie Cunningham, who will host CHTV3's On Camera will be making her debut in this new role within the next week or two . . . . It took a long time for the newspaper correspondence controversy that developed over Town and Around's snippet on Christchurch's mods and rockers to simmer down. Most people seemed of the opinion that Bernard Smythe and his team had done the right thing in bringing these social misfits into the living-rooms of honest-to-goodness solid citizens, but it was also quite apparent that there are some people who prefer to turn a blind eye to such problems in the community . . . . Incidentally Brian Edwards was the interviewer on this particular occasion and this young man is rapidly establishing himself as one of CHTV3's personalities . . . . Being first with the news can be a bit embarrassing at times, as CHTV3 found out, along with the local evening sports paper, at the conclusion of the World Ploughing Contest in Christchurch recently. Announced winner only a couple of hours beforehand, Sweden's Gunnar Johansson was interviewed on TV (he can't speak English), while almost simultaneously it was being announced at the Golden Plough presentation and Festival Concert in Canterbury Court that Johansson had actually tied for first place with Finland's Osmo Hillebrandt.
DUNEDIN
Recent heavy snowfalls, temperatures at times down in the thirties and on the women's programme is that more people than ever have been spending their evening around the television set. At DNTV2, however, business goes on as usual. Town and Around reporter, Cathy Dowling braved the elements for a report on some flood damage in Southland and managed to hold her own in a snowfight at Queenstown with some of the Miss New Zealand contestants who were relaxing after a segment of their strenuous New Zealand tour. . . . . An eagerly awaited documentary on the life of New Zealand's veteran walker, A. H. Reed, has been completed and following the screening of a pilot programme, should be appearing on our screens very soon. . . . . The latest report on the women's programme is that plans are in hand to include guests and items of interest from Alexandra and Invercargill. . . . . With winter just a few weeks old, spring seems very far away, but producer, Brian Ault, is already sounding out the possibilities of an outside broadcast from tlhe Alexandra Blossom Festival. . . . . A recent addition to the Dunedin announcing staff is Brian Stevenson who hails from New Plymouth. At present he is working on the lunch-hour radio programme but it shouldn't be long before we're seeing him on television. . . . . Newsreader, David England, has disappeared from local screens for the time being, although he can still be heard on the radio breakfast session. But if we're seeing less of David, it looks as if we're going to see a lot more of senior announcer, Peiter Dallas, who recently showed his liking for southern hospitalilty by moving into a new house at Waverley.
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