2ZB TO CELEBRATE TENTH BIRTHDAY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 409, 24 April 1947, Page 18

2ZB TO CELEBRATE TENTH BIRTHDAY

T the age of 10, a birthday is a joyous event. At 21 it becomes an affair of responsibility. And at any time after 40, when the feminine coiffeur inclines towards the blue rinse, and the male is arranged with an eye to camouflage, vanity suggests to some of us that anniversaries are best glossed over, if not forgotten. But Station 2ZB, still in its tender years of broadcasting, has a reasonable excuse for celebration on Sunday, April 27, to mark the completion of its first 10 years on the air. For this occasion the station has compiled a special programme, modified somewhat because of power cuts, but designed to feature some of the highlights in its life. Only a few of those who were on the staff at the official opening are still with 2ZB. Some lost their lives during the war; some are in radio overseas; still others have been transferred to different stations or have changed their occupations. And some, on the women’s side of radio, have settled down to full-time domesticity. Station 2ZB was the second in the Commercial network to be established in New Zealand. The first was 1ZB Auckland, and 3ZB Christchurch and 4ZB Dunedin followed in turn. The 10th anniversary of the Commercial Division as a network will be celebrated later in the year. In the last decade the types of entertainment in commercial radio, and presumably listeners’ tastes, have not changed a great deal. The souvenir programme of the official opening of 2ZB contained, as programmes do_ to-day, tales of adventure, comedy sessions,

talks for women in the home, myrder mysteries, sports flashes, and a "wide variety in music, often light, sometimes serious. To-day the ZB’s have expanded their community service with specialised sessions, while serials have as great a listening public as ever. During Sunday, April 27, all the announcers who appear in programmes and sessions during the ordinary broadcasting week will be heard,.and here are some of the highlights: Following the 6.0 a.m. news, there will be "Music While You Milk." Letters from farmers commending this session have been received from as far away as Wanganui. The type of recording requested is mainly the hillbilly variety which, it is suggested, puts Strawberry and Molly in the proper milk-yielding frame of mind. Sessions for Children At 8.0 a.m. listeners will hear the re-cently-started Junior Request Session which brought, in its first week, 300 requests from children up to the age of

12. They ask mainly tor simple, tuneful melodies and there is a suspicion that when swing is requested, the hand of the elder brother or sister -is in the background. Uncle Tom's Children’s Choir, which visited Wellington recently, will be heard at 9.0 am. in five songs, "A Time for Gladness," "Serving with a Smile," "The Sunshine Song," "Raise Our Banner" and "Awake to Praise." For the sporting man who likes to beck his opinions, "Sporting Cavalcade" at 9.20 a.m. may be the means of settling some arguments. It will. cover the decade in outdoor sports from the visit of the South Africans in 1937 to the recent tour of the M.C.C.

cricket team in New Zealand. At 10.0 a.m. some of the leading brass bands of Wellington will be heard in, notable selections. Recollections of her broadcasting experiences in 10 years and of her visits overseas will be given by Aunt Daisy at 10.30 a.m. At 11.0 the first session of a Disabled Servicemen’s Intelligence Quiz will be on the air, to be heard thereafter on Sundays for six weeks. The idea of this broadcast is to entertain sick and wounded men in hospitals by arousing a competitive spirit. Teams from several hospitals will submit replies to lists of questions. Points will be awarded by the AEWS which has arranged the questions, and trophies will be given to the winners. At 11.30 the Returned Services Session will be conducted by Jock Baybutt, and at noon there will be an Anniversary Request session, featuring parts of the four most popular tunes requested in each year.. "Hits of the Decade" will be heard at 2.0 p.m., including top tunes from 1937 to 1947. In 1939, for instance,

"The Lambeth Walk" was the rage; in t was "Wish Me Luck," in 1944 "Lili. Marlene" and so on. Some of Wellington’s leading artists will appear in the studio at 4.0 p.m. They will include an eight-piece band with vocalist, Rita Parata, in Maori songs, Ena Rapley (soprano), Tom Morrison (baritone), and a comedy act. At five o’clock Bryan O’Brien will teil the childrer one of his own storiés, "Jan and the Swans," and at 5.30 p.m. Clarice Brown and the Sunbeam Songsters will be on the air with a group of items. At 6.15 p.m. the recorded story, "The Littlest Angel" will be narrated by the film star Loretta Young. The Russian tenor Senia Chostiakoff, who is now touring the broadcasting stations, will sing, at 6.30 p.m., "Santa Lucia," "Down the Petersky," "Monotonously Rings the Little Bell" and "The Lord’s+ Prayer." Robert Henry, 2ZB’s official accompanist, will follow at 6.45 p.m. with "Melodies You Remember." Messages of Greeting At 7.0 p.m. there will be greetings to 2ZB from the Minister and the Director of Broadcasting, and from the Mayor of Wellington. Greetings will also be heard from Warner Bros. Hollywood Studios and there will be items by some of Warner Bros. stars-Martha Vickers, Ida Lupino, Carmen Caballero and his Orchestra, and Korngold and his Music. Greetings will come from the Paramount Studios at 7.45 p.m., when listeners will hear the voices of Maureen O’Sullivan, Alan: Ladd, and Ray Milland, Scheduled for 8.0 p.m. is a theatre show, starring Lynn Bari in the story, "Between the Devil." This is another special greetings programme supplied to 2ZB. The first broadcast in New Zealand of This Actually Happened will be on the air at 8.30 p.m., replacing History’s Unsolved Mysteries. To make up a half-hour show two episodes of this will be presented — "Red Tape" and "The Perfect Murder." Greetings from M.G.M. Studios will be heard at 9.0 p.m., with numbers by Judy Garland, Pat Kirkwood, Van Johnson, Lucille Bremer, Jane Powell, Jose Iturbi, Lana Turner, June Allyson, and Frank Sinatra. Chronologically-minded listeners will find some meat in "Cavalcade of News" at 9.30 p.m., when selected news items of importance in the last 10 years will be rounded up, The session will start at the arrival in New Zealand of Sir Douglas Mawson’s 1937 2

expedition and travel up the years to the stranding of the Wanganella. Recordings by popular United States radio artists will be heard in "Stars of Radio" at 10.0 p.m., and the Close Down wiil come at midnight. \ (Other photographs will be found in the "People in the Programmes’’ pages.)