From the New Zealand TV Weekly. February 6, 1967

Auckland

It will be interesting to see what effect producer Bryan Easte has in his new assignment of Sportsroom. It is likely to be a temporary arrangement, but the imagination he has shown in other programmes suggests that he could enliven a session which all too often tends to be mundane. . . . . Kevan Moore will be here for some time to get 26 C'mon! shows filmed. Compere Peter Sinclair will have to keep his fingers crossed that Wellington's weather will let him carry out his Saturday morning commute to Auckland without interruption, otherwise he will have to tape his national radio shows before their Friday night playings. . . . . Town and Around intends to get down to doing a job of reflecting the area rather than being a sort of mini-revue. It is no easy job thinking up a constant flow of new material, but with the experience the team has had, it should not be impossible. Certainly, its time to drop the sort of Keystone Cops speeded up action gimmickry on which too much of the show's humour has depended. . . . . Four Cameras on Campus shows locally will have to wait until Kevan Moore copes with C'Mon! Heaven only knows when he is going to fit in his wedding appointment with former The Family Game hostess Rosalind Walker. . . . . Some sort of Famous First set by AKTV2's outside telecast of the open-air Mass from the Catholic Church's Christian Life Week. It is thought to be the first live outdoors Church service telecast here. . . . . The Samurai attracting some comment as rather red meat for the smaller fry.

Wellington

The NZBC corridors shuddered with the shock announcement that chief television producer Allan Martin had handed in his notice. His departure for an unannounced overseas post leaves a gaping hole in the senior ranks of television and in the first days after the news was released there was a feeling that he would be irreplaceable. His skill and experience would seem to be unmatched on the already thin production side perhaps it was this skill which meant that inevitably some overseas organisation would snatch him away from his native New Zealand. The impact of his resignation was reflected in the statement issued by the "boss", Gilbert Stringer. He paid a well-deserved tribute to Allan. Who to replace him? that's the question that has NZBC staffers puzzled. Brian Bell is perhaps the only one who might have the experience to take over this top production slot but he is deeply involved in the Corporation's ambitious dramatic productions of specially commissioned New Zealand plays. It looks if a replacement will have to be found overseas-if the corporation can loosen the purse strings to offer a worthwhile salary to a top-notch man. . . . . Town and Around gets going again on January 30 with a new producer and some new faces in front of the camera. Linda McDougall-ex-Dunedin and ex-Christchurch-will fill in as producer until a permanent appointment is made. She is best known for starting the Alison Holst series.

CHRISTCHURCH

Town and Around producer Des Monaghan was busy in January looking for new reporters and new faces for this popular programme to reopen mid-February. Front-man Bernard Smyth is definitely staying with the programme, while Owen Patterson will keep on providing the light touches. Helen Holmes is cutting down on her reportage. Monaghan is spending most of February and March in Wellington so Bill Taylor will be deputising. . . . . NZBC News fell down, in the view of local motor racing fans, in providing only sketchy results from the New Zealand Grand Prix at Pukekohe. Only the first three placings-all taken by overseas drivers-were given. Big news, as far as New Zealand followers were concerned, was that three times national champion Jim Palmer finished fourth, to be first resident driver home for the fourth successive year, and Graeme Lawrence, the up-and-coming Wanganui driver, was fifth driving a car much smaller than those of the aces and well ahead of much more powerful machinery. It wouldn't have taken much extra time to mention a couple of extra names that were news. . . . . Close-up shots of Captain Robert Falcon Scott's statue in Oxford Terrace, Christchurch, recently completed an American camera crew's filming for a 30-minute TV documentary on the life of the British explorer. The crew shot about 60,000ft of film in the Antarctic, Britain and New Zealand. It will be edited to about 2,000ft to produce the finished documentary. Shot in colour, it is one in the American Broadcasting series, The Saga of Western Man and is due for U.S. release late March. This is one U.S. series that the NZBC could look at with profit.

DUNEDIN

Of course northern channels have had Green Acres screening for quite a while, but this viewer was thoroughly confused walking in on the middle of the first episode. I decided it was Petticoat Junction- with Uncle Joe and Co. on screen, then with the appearance of Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor, speculated it might be the beginning of Green Acres, only to be more confused after some discussion about professions and the appearance of John Daly as guest narrator. You see John Daly is best known to American viewers, and to me, as moderator of the long-standing American TV panel show What's my Line? I wasn't sure WHAT programme I was watching until the credits came up at the end! . . . . Did you know? department: Patrick Macnee is a published author. Saw an Avenger-based paperback in a bookshop the other day with Patrick's name as the lone and unassisted author. . . . . Have heard it rumoured (by no means official) that one of the proposed programmes for the extended afternoon hours come April, is the Ed Sullivan Show. Unless the afternoon showings are planned as repeats of night-time telecasts, I predict an outcry from the working public. After all, Ed, staid as he is himself, lines up some of the best talent in the world, paying up to an over the $7,000 mark for a single appearance.

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