TELEVISION IN NEW ZEALAND IS LAGGING

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 31, 10 December 1948, Page 3

TELEVISION IN NEW ZEALAND IS LAGGING

Hilly Country Is Found Unsuitable (By Reece Smith, New Zealand Kemsley Empire Journalist) London, Oct. 1. Good, earnest New Zealanders will be dismayed and bewildered to learn there are respects in which their country does not lead the world. One such: Television. Moreover it looks just now as though New Zealand will not even be a starter in tire race for years, maybe edging in finally just ahead of Afghanistan. - Television, which declines to follow radio round the curvature of the earth, has a present range of only 35 miles. So, to cover worthwhile numbers, a transmitter must be set in a densely populated area, such as London or New York. Second, television does not like hills, and refuses to go through them. For these reasons New Zealand, ' with no concentrations of population much better than an English or American market town, and, Christchurch excepted, no city in which many houses would not be screened from a transmitter by hills, does not look the television man’s ideal. In flat, congested Britain the BBC happily predicts it will be able to cover the great bulk of the population from only five transmitters. Britain Ahead Both in America and Britain television is well on the way in. Technically America is moving faster because television in Britain, rating no export priority, has tp wait its turn for materials and technicians. Unable to get much more than the same equipment they had in 1936, the BBC television unit at Alexandra Palace is getting on with production technique. America, which started at the war’s end where Britain was in 1936, may already have gone into the technical lead, but according to sports commentator Ted Husing, speaking after seeing the television coverage of the Olympic Games, the BBC has the edge in production. There is little doubt that television, in expanding, will develop artistic methods all its own. It will not be staffed from some witches’ brew of screen dolls, movie cameramen and radio script writers. The dolls are ruled out because television girls have to know how to learn their lines and act. Recently I was at a dress rehearsal for a television documentary. It was along the lines of those films where a* girl narrates her story, and a flash back visually portrays the episodes as she tells them. Every now and then there is a shot of the girl narrating, in this case to a welfare officer, so the audience will be reminded why they are supposed to be interested in these goings on anyway. In the films they would shoot the scenes with the welfare officer one day, maybe with several retakes, then everyone would go home to sleep it off, and come back refreshed and in different clothes to play the flashback sequences, at a rate of one a day or less. The harrassed television lass I saw had to whirl off the welfare officer set, shedding her costume and clambering into another in a wild dash to reach the flashback set in time for the production to flo,w on continuously. Then back to the welfare officer, then. to another flashback. Films Televised Sequences demanding too quick a change can be filmed, and the film televised. Given luck and a good producer, there is nothing hybrid about the product as seen by the viewer, but the BBC aim to do with as little filming as possible. With a team of players scurrying as I describe for each show, and with three. or four shows a night, television studios shape pretty well to become a cross between a crowded boudoir and a track and field meeting. A television station needs ten to twenty times the performers of a radio station. One announcer with a pile of records cannot keep the public amused for hours with no greater effort than turning up at the studio on time. ’ New Zealand, as far as I have seen it, has just about enough variety talent available to televise , a

village concert once a fortnight. The amateur dramatic folk, repertory and the like, have shown imagination and flexibility which suggests they may be able to turn their efforts to television better than many. Musicians cannot be televised as infinitely as they are broadcast. Music is mainly to be listened to, not looked at. Filmed television features may fill out this sparse prospect in the sam§ way as recorded features fill out our radio programmes, but it looks as if it will be a long time before New Zealanders get much for their money on an £BO television receiver.