Items From The ZB's

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 89, 7 March 1941, Page 25

Items From The ZB's

Fr or ne YOUNG woman of considerable talents is Mrs. Gae Newton, 1ZB’s advertising saleswoman. She is an _L.T.C.L., and used to teach the piano before she went to America to study advertising. In America she was attached to both the National and Columbia radio networks, and met many of the personalities whose voices are familiar to New Zealand listeners through the ZB stations’ American-produced features. While in Hollywood, she met C. P. McGregor, whose studios produced "The House of Peter McGregor," "The Mutiny on the Bounty" and "Lost Empire." Mr. McGregor runs his studios on the same lines as a movie studio, though naturally on a smaller scale. He has his own orchestras, script writers, technicians and artists. Radio features are produced with typical Hollywood thoroughness. For instance, "The: Mutiny on the Bounty" was thought important enough to justify the "importing" of a complete English cast. * * * ESSIONS of the latest recordings are always popular, and the latest is one which 4ZB has inaugurated, and which is conducted by "Airini" every Monday night from 9.30 to 10.0p.m. Another new session for 4ZB listeners is "Famous Dance Bands," heard every Tuesday evening. It features recordings by some of the best known bands of England and America, together with historical facts and anecdotes about the men who conduct them. * * * BRIGHT item at Station 2ZB’s recent Radio Theatre Show was the first stage appearance of "Station T.O.T.," when a number of very young artists demonstrated how they rehearsed for an actual presentation of their show. The item attracted considerable interest, and Bryan O’Brien has received many requests from members of the public who would like to watch "Station T.0.T." in process of being put on the air. This, of course, is not an easy request to grant, as going on the air is much too serious and preoccupying a business, Indeed, to the stranger unacquainted with the methods of a broadcasting studio, the session would present merely a jumble of seemingly unconnected items. One session might feature piano-accordionists, reciters, singers, xylophones, pianists, all tied together by "T.O.T.’s" young compere, Albert McGowan. * * + ATEST provincial town to start a branch of 1ZB’s Happiness Club is Tauranga. The other week, Joan, the director, and nearly 150 members from the parent club, travelled to Taura to explain the aims and objects of ‘te club. They were met by representatives of 30 different women’s organisations, and the new branch shows every prospect of forging ahead. Another recent activity of the Happiness Club was the choir’s second dance. The Fair, of course, is the next big effort,