FINE NEW STUDIOS FOR 1ZB

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 119, 3 October 1941, Page 12

FINE NEW STUDIOS FOR 1ZB

THE people whose pictures appear on this page will all be prominently associated with the official opening of the new 1ZB on the evening of Monday, October 6. Above is the Hon. D. Wilson, Minister in Charge of Broadcasting, who will perform the opening ceremony. At the lett are C. G. Scrimgeour. and B. T. Sheil, Controller and Deputy-Controller of the Commercial Broadcasting Service. Bottom left is Princess Te Puea Herangi, C.B.E., who will bring special greetings on behalf of 1ZB’s Maori listeners, and below is Ana Hato, the well-known Maori singer, who will be featured in the special Maori goodwill programme.

ALMOST exactly five years after the introduction of commercial broadcasting to New Zealand, the most modern radio studios in the Dominion, claimed to bear favourable comparison with similar premises anywhere else in the world, will be officially opened in Auckland on Monday, October 6, to accommodate Station 1ZB. The opening ceremony will be performed by the Hon. D. Wilson, Minister in Charge of Broadcasting, and a special programme will be presented to commemorate the event. The studios, which are the last word in radio technique, embody many novel features. The architect was Alva Bartley, of Auckland, who had the benefit of the experience gained by B. T. Sheil, deputy-Controller of the CBS, in the layout and construction of Stations 2ZB, 3ZB and 4ZB.

HE present studios of 1ZB, in the Queen’s Arcade, just by the intersection of Queen Street and Customs Street East, have long been too cramped for 1ZB’s large staff, and have, in fact, been condemned by the Health Department as unsuitable for their purpose. The new building, which is in Durham Street, behind His Majesty's Theatre, has 1ZB’s studios ‘and offices on the ground, mezzanine afd first floors, the other two floors being taken up by offices of other Government departments. The dominating feature of the building is the high, modernistic tower, and a further modern touch is given by the extensive use of glass bricks, which permit many striking sunlight effects within the building. .

The studios boast the first audienceparticipation radio theatre built in New Zealand, an innovation which brings commercial broadcasting abreast of the latest developments in America. From the radio theatre, which seats an audience of 200, and has full spot and flood lighting, studio shows will be produced

with faithful audience-participation atmosphere. The theatre has its own control room, from which the operator can watch the stage and control lighting and stage effects as well as the microphones. The technical equipment of the new studios is as up-to-the-minute as anything in New Zealand or Australia. Nerve centre is the main control room, through which pass all programmes, auditions, and rehearsals. In commercial radio the control technician’s job calls for rapid movement and extreme concentration, involving as it does the simultaneous control of three or more discs and an announcer’s voice. The design and arrangement of equipment, consequently, must be such that all necessary controls for altering circuits and testing and monitoring programmes must be at his finger tips. At the new 1ZB control desk, the operator can set up any circuit, test it before use, present a complete recorded or studio programme, change over from one set of amplifiers to another in the event of a fault developing, and communicate with any studio or outside source of programme without leaving his seat. Another feature of interest in the studios is the Novachord, which will be heard every day in recitals by Eric Bell.

Hailed as the most important musical invention since the piano, the Novachord (not to be confused with the Hammond electric organ) has a clear belllike piano tune which can be varied at will to reproduce the sound of almost

any instrument or combination of instruments. A description of the new building together with photographs and an account of the opening, will appear in the next two issues of Zhe Listener.