RADIO PROGRAMMES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 341, 4 January 1946, Page 5

RADIO PROGRAMMES

Sir,- Having returned to New Zealand after being six years away at the war, I cannot get over the appalling inferiority of our daily programmes. After what I have heard in America, Canada, and Britain, our own radio fare seems stuffy, weak, and lifeless. At first I couldn’t exactly put a finger on the reason why. But finding that I can hear the BBC Shortwave programme here very clearly, and comparing them with

our own radio programmes, there is no doubt in my opinion that the NBS »hasn’t got the art of presentation. When I first heard the New Zealand stations again I was struck by the dreadfully out-of-date records and performers that I thought would have been put on the retired list long ago. When I reached England I discovered a new world of marvellous music I never heard in New Zealand, and don’t hear yet, and maybe never will. Of course the NBS have diffi- | culties. Worthwhile radio talent is not in big supply in our country, and no doubt the war seriously cut off the flow of new records from overseas to keep our "glorified gramophone" going.- But with the material the NBS do have at their disposal, they don’t make up a good daily service. Everything is bits and pieces and one long dreary medley. Once in a while one can get "one’s teeth" into something, but not often. As I see it, its first step is to get some organisation, new life and interest into the programmes and the way they are put over. Radio coverage in New Zealand seems to be good. The announcers want to pep up a bit and not seem so dry and disinterested. They should be trained more thoroughly and carefully before they are

allowed to speak over the air. I say this because the sort of thing we hear is that which I heard two nights ago, when a harsh-voiced lad on an auxiliary station in a certain centre announced he was going to play some music by "Biz-ett."

CHALLENGE

(Dunedin).