From the New Zealand TV Weekly, 14 November 1966
Having lived with virtually non-stop television for nearly a decade we find ourselves at odds with NZBC- TV’s decision to increase hours of transmission, even on the comparatively minor scale planned.
Twenty-four-hour-a-day-TV, which is the impassable maximum now reached in the U.S.A., has its logic in that massive country with its apartment living, intimidating winters, greater number of shut-ins, and myriads of shift workers.
But the previous hours of television in New Zealand admirably suited our country and its habits, and at the same time served to prevent one of the direst consequences of continuous TV—that moment when television becomes larger than life, - and to all intents and purposes be- comes a substitute for real living.
It is all very well to enjoy a TV serial on a weekly or twice-weekly basis as an entertainment, But the American daytime soapers—many of them excellent in plotting, production and performanee care shown on a daily basis, and can get a housewife so hooked, that while she may originally have started her viewing only to while away housebound winter hours, she finds ber addiction carries on into summer months too... sometimes to the extent that the people in those serials cause her more care and concern than the real people around her.
Whatever improvements we feel NZBC TV could make in overall service and presentation to the viewing public, extended hours—regardless of the programmes selected—are not among them.
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