NEW HOME FOR 2ZA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 796, 22 October 1954, Page 27

NEW HOME FOR 2ZA

"PHE first permanent new NZBS station building since 1ZB was completed in 1941 will take shape at Palmerston North during the next 12 months or so. The tender of a local contractor for the reconstruction of premises owned by the Service in George Street. almosi opposite the end of Broadway, has been accepted, and work is expected to start sooh. Exterior work will include not only strengthening to comply with current earthquake risk requirements, but, as. the artist’s impression at right shows, a modern facade which will give

excellent natura] lighting to rooms in the front part of the building. Station 2ZA now operates from premises in the A.M.P. Building, leased when the station opened 16 years ago, but because of expanded activities, and especially extended hours, additional offices have had to be provided in Hopwood’s Building; and for some time it has been recognised that the technical, studio, programme and office facilities are inadequate for the station’s present scale of work, and far from being in line with modern standards of broadcasting. On two floors the new station will have 5570 square feet of floor space, and store, workshop and other buildings will be provided in a yard at the rear. The main entrance on the ground floor will open on to a tiled foyer with reception desk, with beyond this a lounge which looks into the main studio. Offices for the salesman and senior technician and an artists’ waiting room are off the lounge. Behind the main studio and reached by a passageway along the right-hand side of the building will be the main control room, an announcer’s studio and an auxiliary control room which is to serve also as a talks studio. The studios will be designed for good acoustical properties, and engineers will take an opportunity they do not often get to make careful measurements on acoustics at appropriate stages of construction. The partition wall between the announcer’s room and the auxiliary control room will be set at a slight angle to improve the acoustics of these small rooms. In line with current broadcestine practice. the auxiliary control room will be used to control studio verformances to relieve congestion in the main control room. The upper floor of the station will provide office accommodetion for station manager, proeramme officer, Women’s Hour personality, tvpists, accounts staff and copywriters, a record library and an audition room. The modern, remote-controlled twokilowatt transmitter installed at Kairanga, outside Palmerston North. in 1950, will continue to serve the station: but technical installations at the studio building will include new speech equipment which has been in store for some time.