World-Wide Audience for NZBS Programme

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 929, 31 May 1957, Page 26

World-Wide Audience for NZBS Programme

‘| HE NZBS has had word that a programme which it specially produced for the BBC Transcription Service has been asked for by 26 Commonwealth broadcasting services, eight United States stations and seven armed forces stations in Europe, the Mediterranean and Africa. The production of a special programme for the BBC Transcription Service is a new step in NZBS-BBC cooperation. In the past the BBC has selected programmes from its own transmissions and transcribed or recorded them for Commonwealth broadcasting services, Lists of these transcriptions are circulated and the various broadcasting services select what they want to use. The NZBS takes almost the whole transcription output. : Recently, however, the BBC suggested that as an experiment New Zealand and other Commonwealth countries should themselves contribute to the Transcription Service output. It asked that the programmes should in one way or another be characteristic of ufe in the contributing countries. The NZBS agreed to become a contributor, and a programme specially written by John Gundry was produced in the Wellington Production Studios by Bernard Beeby. This programme, Where-the World Begins, uses the story of Maui as a starting point for a series of conversations between two ‘tourists and several representative New Zealanders, in which many aspects of New Zealand life and character are examined. Mr Beeby described parts of the programme as "very atmospheric." It makes use of a variety of sound effects and includes a song, sung by George Ayo, for which the music was written by Doris Sheppard. The principal members of the cast are William Austin, Patrick Smyth, Davina Whitehouse, Michael Begelman, Burke Honey, Roy Leywood, Alan Jervis and Laurie Sweetapple. In a letter thanking the NZBS for Where the World Begins the BBC mentions that it has also issued contributions by Australia, Canada, South Africa and India; and it asks whether the ~~

NZBS would like to extend the exchange idea during the coming year. Countries which have asked for the NZBS programme are Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, British Guiana, British Honduras, Canada, Ceylon, Cyprus, Fiji, Ghana, Jamaica, Hong Kong, Kenya, Malaya, Malta, Mauritius, Nigeria, North Borneo, Sarawak, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, Trinidad and Uganda. It has also been requested by armed forces stations in Germany, Gibraltar, East Africa, Benghazi, Tripoli, Cyprus and Aden, and by KWSC (Washington), WFPL (Kentucky), WNAD and KAMC (Oklahoma), KUOH (Hawaii), WOI (Iowa), WBJC (Baltimore) and WFMT (Illinois). Though this is the first New Zealand programme specially produced for the BBC Transcription Service, it is not, of course, the first NZBS programme sent to the BBC. In the past, however, they have all been sent for use in the BBC’s own transmissions.