(16) COLIN TRIM — Station

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 53, 28 June 1940, Page 11

(16) COLIN TRIM — Station

Director, 4YZ Invercargill

gramme for one of the main stations, and ask themselves what it must be like to be the man responsible for gathering together all the hundreds of details necessary for its presentation and continuity, they will know something of the work of Colin Trim, now Station Director of 4YZ Invercargill. He has just been transferred there from the position of programme organiser for 2YA and at this moment is probably feeling his first heavy frosts since he started in broadcasting work 14 years ago. When broadcasting in New Zealand was run by a private company with headquarters in Christchurch, Mr. Trim secured a job managing Station 2YK in Wellington. That was in 1926, just when radio was beginning to develop out of the embryo stage. In 1927 2YA was formed and he became programme organiser, Since then, with only one or two breaksin 1930 he worked at 1YA-he has remained in Wellington. It was little use our representative asking Mr. Trim about his hobbies, in the usual manner of interviewers prying into the private lives of public figures. For Mr. Trim is a programme organiser, and programme organisers have no hobbies. What do programme organisers do? Everything. They listen to auditions. They engage artists. They have to see what the artists want to sing or play and make sure that their items run the right length of time, do not repeat other programme material, do not infringe strict copyright laws. He must see that every minute of the whole day is covered in the programmes prepared two weeks in advance, and yet there must be sufficient flexibility in his arrangements to ensure that operators, announcers, engineers, and all the rest of the radio station’s organisation are provided for in the event of emergencies. — If there is a relay to be covered it is the programme organiser who sees that the operators have tested the line, that>the announcer can get there in time and be provided with proper accommodation. He has to watch all the time that none of the many hundreds of items broadcast during one week by his station repeats itself unnecessarily or duplicates the broadcasts of any other station. However, in spite of all this, Mr. Trim has found. time to take an interest in repertory work-*" small parts, I had no time to rehearse long ones" — although even this has been dropped since the war and the influx of overseas broadcasts began to make a programme organiser’s life even more complicated than usual. Is readers will glance at an average day’s- pro-