FIVE BUSY YEARS AT IZB

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 123, 31 October 1941, Page 11

FIVE BUSY YEARS AT IZB

of the new studios in Durham Street, Auckland, 1ZB celebrated its fifth anniversary, and, although the small group of pegple who comprised the station’s staff when it first opened on October 29, 1936, are well scattered by now, there is nothing surer than that, wherever they are, their thoughts will be turning back to those hectic, bustling first three months of 1ZB’s life. For 1ZB was out to capture the public ear, and showed great enterprise and sometimes went to ‘surprising lengths to do it, There was certainly no lack of novelty in the 1ZB’s early programmes, Announcers broadcast a commentary on a trip to the Auckland Zoo on the back of an elephant; they installed a microphone in an air-liner and described the trip to Wellington. With the aid of short-wave equipment they broadcast from a launch on the Waikato River and from the top of Mount Egmont. They took a microphone through the Auckland Winter Exhibition, down Queen Street, to a Maori pa at Roto>rua, to city restaurants, to all kinds of events on all sorts of occasions. If they wished to boast about figures, the people at 1ZB could point out that in five years they have earned over £200,000 in revenue, Various stepping stones mark the station's progress. First achievement was a bright breakfast session which was something new to Auckland §listeners, and set the town talking; then came a competition which brought 54,000 letters in a little over four days; then the Radio Personality Quest, : FEW weeks after the opening

which brought to light much hidden talent; then the building up of daytime sessions and the development of a full Sunday schedule of entertainment and the introduction of "audience participation."