FAMILIAR VOICE ON AIR AGAIN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 371, 2 August 1946, Page 18

FAMILIAR VOICE ON AIR AGAIN

Winston McCarthy Returns to Duty With the NBS

his broadcasting tour with the 2nd N.ZEF. Rugby team, Winston McCarthy of the NBS has settled down once more to the task of providing sporting commentaries for his own countrymen. While he was abroad he did sports broadcasts for the BBC, and his voice has in New Zealand after

been heard by Rugby followers throughout the world. His quickfire style at the microphone was something of a novelty to the BBC, where the organisation of outside broadcasts is more complex than it is here. "You must realise," he told The Listener, "that the BBC setup for outside broadcasts is different from ours in New Zealand. Ours is really more compact. The commentator here has an engineer or technician with him, and just signals when he is ready to start and finish. The gear can be carried by one man-a bag in each hand and one slung round his neck. But when working for the BBC you never see technicians, though four men go to an assignment and it takes about two hours to set up the gear. "At Gloucester, for example, Rex Alston (the BBC commentator) and George Looker, who is in charge of the Pacific section of outside broadcasts for the BBC, were with me, Looker sitting next to me and acting as @ sort of liaison officer. The routine was for me to say:

‘Hello BBC, hello recording room; this is Winston McCarthy at Gloucester. The match is as arranged at 2.30. I will call you at eight minutes, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, 30 seconds, and 10 seconds from now.’ Then, at the exact time I would go ahead with the commentary." Cardiff had the Best Box The accommodation provided for outside broadcasters varied a good deal, he told us. The best broadcasting box of all was at Cardiff, where one could lean over the rail and watch the match at reasonably close quarters. "People say Rugby is a religion in New Zealand, but you ought to see what they think of it in Wales; it’s a religion there all right." But in many places the broadcasting box was very high up and quite a long way from the field. At Murrayfield, in Scotland, a special box was built for him, but most of the time he did his broadcasting from among the crowd, using a lip-microphone (fitting closely over the mouth).

"In broadcasting a match, the BBC do not give as many names as we do," he told us. "Here people want to know who is doing what. My first broadcast was at Leeds, and I could not help feeling strange at the different methods of control, but I went ahead just as I do in New Zealand. Once I was advised to keep it down a bit, and not get so excited, and the result was that my articulation improved, even when I was tight up in the air." At the present time, he said, the BBC was hard pressed for capable outside commentators. Their best man to-day was Raymond Glendenning, who specialised in Rugby, soccer, boxing and racing broadcasts. One found the BBC treatment of racing peculiar. Only one race was broadcast from each day of a meeting and the commentator was limited strictly to a commentary on the running. BBC officials found it hard to believe that all eight races were broadcast in New Zealand. New Zealand racing commentators, he thinks, would be a sensation in Britain.