ITEMS FROM THE ZB's

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 408, 18 April 1947, Page 20

ITEMS FROM THE ZB's

TATION 1ZB’s Radio Theatre programme for Sunday, April 20, will include a further presentation in the series Melody Time, featurifg two Auckland artists, Rosamund Caradus (soprano) and Kathleen O’Leary (pianist). The 1ZB_ Salon Orchestra will assist. Miss Caradus, who recently returned from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, will sing "At the Well" (Hageman), and the folk song "Greensleeves." Miss O’Leary will play some Chopin ballades. —

Youth Calls the Tune N keeping with its policy of encouraging young amateur talent, Station 1ZB is to present another programme by youthful performers from its Radio Theatre on Sunday, April 27, at 7.45 p.m. Entitled "Call to Youth," this programme will feature presentations by young people who did well in the recent Auckland competitions. Among them will be a boy soprano, Lindsay Nash; sopranos Jessie Signell and Kathleen Veza, and Russell Geary, a pianist who won first prize recently in a 1ZB piano contest. The Singing Barber N Saturday, April 19, at 10.45 p.m, Station 3ZB will present Perry Como, the American light vocalist, in some of his latest songs. Como’s rise was rapid. He started work in a Pennsylvania coal-mine and later ran q barber’s shop on the outskirts of an Ohio town. He had done a little part-time work with a small band which toured dance halls, when Ted Weems heard of the singing barber and gave him a trial. He stayed with the Weems band till 1942 and, when it broke up, found lucrative offers awaiting him. Since moving to the Copacabana Club in New York, he has gained success. Radio contracts and many good recordings have established him as an attractive singer of the light type. He has appeared in three motion pictures. Time, Please! PART from loss of entertainment, restricted broadcasting hours have also meant cancellation of some of the ZB services to the listening public. And the one missed probably most of all is the frequent announcemerit of the time in the breakfast sessions. Station 1ZB, along with others who have their own arrangements, gives a time-service to telephone callers every morning from 6.45 o'clock. This station started the service on Friday, March 28; one announcement was made the evening before, and promptly at 6.45 the next day, the switchboard buzzed. Calls came at the tate of one every 20 seconds between 6.45 and 7.15 a.m., tailing off towards 8.30 a.m., when most people were on their way to trains and ferries. Phil Shone, 1ZB’s breakfast session announcer, handles the calls and now speaks to individual listeners through a telephone instead of studio equipment. Dog at the Mike FOR the sake of verisimilitude, Station 2ZB’s breakfast session some time _ago introduced a dog to bark impatient warnings that it was getting near schoolbell time. With the idea of testing the popularity of the innovation, children were invited to write for a photograph of the dog, whose name is Pluto. Only three announcements of the invitation were made, and 2,000 applications for a picture were received by the station in- one week. The youngest applicant was aged 12 months, his mother saying that he seemed to take a lively interest in the barking. All age groups up to 13 seemed to be represented, according to information contained in the letters. The station made an analysis of coverage and found that the keenest listener-interest came from Manawatu, the Wanganui district, Taranaki, ‘Wairarapa, up the Main Trunk, and Marlborough. Selwyn Toogood conducts the session.