Programmes for Young People

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 509, 25 March 1949, Page 19

Programmes for Young People

|F you glance at 2YA’s Saturday programmes for items between 5.0 p.m. and 5.45 p.m. you will see an unusual title, "What We Want on Our Programme." It hasn’t been there long, and the explanation jis that the Children’s Hour on Saturdays has been remodelled to include more items of interest to young people from the tiny-tot stage to the age of 18 years, and to let them have a say in what is to be broadcast. Participants are invited to express their likes and dislikes in radio entertainment, and they may, if they wish,

select whole programmes of their own for broadcasting in the Children’s Hour on a subsequent Saturday. Recently, under this new arrangement, one child who obviously had the visit of the International Grand Opera Company in mind, askéd for a short programme _ telling the stories of the operas; another wanted recordings of classic stories specially written for children; and somebody else favoured items by individual singers, but specifying pianoforte accompaniment only. So, on the following Saturdays, these items were presented, with the selector giving reasons for his or her choice. One thing the controllers of the session have noticed with pleasure, not unmixed with surptise, is that so far there have been no requests for crime serials or anything faintly resembling them. Now and then a tape-recorder is used to make up a programme of outside events, such as the recent visit to Wellington of the liner Dominion Monarch; and a recorder will probably be taken to the Wellington Zoo when the next consignment of animals arrives from overseas. Two items which are interesting parents as well as juveniles are "Can You Spell This?" and "Do You Know Your New Zealand?" One of the oldest in length of service among 2YA’s Children’s Hour team of helpers is Henry Kelly, of Wellington, who under the radio name of Tom Thumb, is now presenting a number of boyhood stories called "I Remember."