In the Wake of the
Week's Broadcasts
NOTHING VERY GOOD OR VERY BAD.
There is nothing either very good or very bad to say about station 2ZB's "In Town To-night"’ session last week. The speakers were an actress-organiser of the British Drama League in New
Zealand whose voice showed what a difference perfect voice production
ean make in a radio speaker, av astromoner from the Dominion Observatory, and a teacher of ballet who had returned from abroad. The speakers and the interviewer all did their jobs in good workmanlike style, but the session seemed to me to lack the touch of novelty that I have heard in ig before. There was nothing in it of the odd and eurious nature that T had hoped for: no man, this — time. who collected spiders’ webs as a profession, or eaughr rats for the city eouncil, This, 1 could not help think~ ing, robbed the whole session of much
of its character aud brought it down too close to the level .of the ordinary newspaper interview.
BAND NOT TOO PERFECTJUST HUMAN.
Town Hall dance, biggest regular Saturday night dance held in Dunedin during winter months, was on the air last Saturday, 4ZB relaying a pleasant hour. The Savoia Dance Band proved
tseir qulle CapAoie of holding its own with most dance bands, It "lost" itself here and there,
but those little lapses are generally to be associated with a flesh-and-blood dance band. Anyway, such lapses make the laying seem a little more human than the "too-perfect" performances of recorded bands. ‘he feature item, the nul Jones medley, played for the first time, was a splendidjy-rendered vumber, the many tunes required for the different dances incorporated in the
medley blending well, and being played with just the right tempo. Vocalist Jimmy MacFarlane was in good voice, as he usually is.
SOME PEOPLE ARE NoT CONSIDERATE.
Tired staff folk both at 8YA and 3ZB carried on with their usual duties on Thursday morning of last week after a night and part of a morning anent in sivine the nublic the election
results. Both stations dealt with a comparatively dry subject interesting-
ly, tor, in Cnrisichurch at any rate, there was not the usual excitemenf. This is shown by the small poll recorded. Final resulis. as fap as the city council was eoncerned, were not available until 1.15 acm. Radio stations, Naturally, are supposed to be information bureaus, but it must be distinctly annoying when, after results have been given out
constantly, people telephone the station in their hundreds asking for what they must already have heard. x
JOURNEY WAS NOT COMFORTABLE.
Listening to a recorded talk by Mrs. H. BE. Vaile on South America from 2YA last week, I was worried by the fact that the last part of many senteneces wag utterly lost through the
dropping of the voice. Twice lately I have had the same experience in listening to women speak-
ers. It is a defect that is apparently much more noticeable in the woman's yoice over the air that in a man’s. The consequence wag that what I hoped would be a pleasant mental travel in South America became soon an un- . comfortable journey in which I found myself dumped off at places just before I reached the view, So, at last, in despair, I gave up and came home again, Bis
TALK BROUGHT UNEXPECTED REPLY.
4 The other week Mr. H, A. Glasson spoke from 4YA on "Dunedin Place Names," giving entertaining odd scraps of information regarding the bestowal of certain names. During his remarks
he referred to some white people who settled on an island near Taieri Mouth. Not lone after thea
ae, — ia settlement was a girl was born, and this child became an object of great curiosity to nearby Maoris, who had not before seen a white baby. what was in 1864. A day or two following his talk, Mr. Glasson received a letter written by a woman on behalf of her mother. The mother had thoroughly enjoyed the talk, and particularly the reference to the white baby. because she had been that very baby. she
NEWS SESSIONS NEED SUB-EDITING,
Tnteresting to radio listeners would be a statement of NBS poliey regarding its seven o’clock news sessions. Government news is given in full, of course, and this is natural-even
though lf does often savour of propaganda, But the selection uf
overseas news seems to be made haphazard, with very little regard to what most attracts listeners. No doubt there is good reason why we should not be given murders and blood over the air, and there is si vertain amount of "heavy" political and
financial details which are indispensable. All the same, there could surely be a little sub-editing done before the day’s events go over the air. Radio news sessions could be highlights of the programmes, with the messages arranged according to news valuejust as they are in a well-ordered newspaper. Instead, they mostly sound tediously like father reading the coinmercial page. ‘vi
TREATING CHILD MIND WITH RESPECT.
More quiet and careful work goes on behind the microphone in children’s sessions than most listeners realise. The idea that the child mind needs only trivial food is now fortunately obso-
lete in New Zealand radio. As an example, a session was given in the children’s hour
last week from 2YA that was just as fascinating to adults as to the young, and yet must have had a direct appeal to the latter, There were two main features, the first a charming little sketch based on the friendship between Sir Walter Scott and his eight-year-old playmate, Marjorie Fleming, and the second a clear-cut dramatised version of the tragic flight of R101, given in a series called "This Was News." Boti showed signs of careful, indeed, affectionate workmanship, and paid the child mind the tribute of treating it as something deserving respect--and that. of course, is the way to get it to respond. yb
"MAN IN .THE GALLERY" WAS NERVOUS.
New session on 2YD Sunday night programmes is a celebrity concert about S o’clock, compered by "Man in the Gallery.’ Last week it started off well with some excellent recordings of
famous artists in musie, not too clas. sical to be popular. "Man in the GalJery’ bimself was
the weak link, for his voice was rather uneven and binted at nervousness. Maybe that will pass off in time-any-way, the main stuff of the feature is _ Worth trying. oA
NOTED BARRISTER KNEW HIS SUBJECT.
Talks ou trials are not hard to listen to when they are handled as has been the short series of curious and historical trials given recently from 4YA by 2 Dunedin barrister. Last week the
second of the "Fistorical Trials" was given, and I could not but be im-
pressed by the manner iu Which the speaker obtained every scrap of drama and human interest from his stories, which. for time reasons, had to be pruned to the veriest essentials, Many people destroy the whole effect by improper pruning, but this speaker Jost nothing at all, indeed, his pruning rather enhanced the dramas he related. The speaker’s identity is really quite well known, He is Mr. GC. J. L. White. one of Dunedin’ foremost barristers to-day. I have often heard Mr. White in eourt-he is invariably defending counsel in most of the big criminal cases--and, after vomparing his court manner with his rudio manner, I believe he has two distine, personalities, In court be rants and declaims so that you wouldn’t think he was human, but you couldn't have wished for a more human speaker
on the air. Incidentally, I wus pleased to hear Mr. White outline the story of Jock MacKenzie last week. I have quite a soft spot for the notorious sheepstealer, because he is about the only decently picturesque criminal we bare in our history, and in some degree measures up to Robin Hood or Claude Duval. [I have always believed that some day MacKenzie will occupy 2 place in New Zealand "penny dreadful" fiction that: the outlaw and highwuyman already mentioned occupy in othvt countries. wy
HUMOUR NEEDED CAREFUL HANDLING.
"o ‘Capping procession staged by students of the Otago University was well handled by 4ZB. From the City Hotei two announcers gave the first really comprehensive account of a students’
procession ever given in Duvedin, and the novelty of the broadcast was widelv annreciated.
Student humour being what it sometimes is, the announcers bad to exercise care in reading out some of the signs and placards. and more than once a titter into the "mike" followed by the remark. "We wouldn’t be allowed to broadcast that" (no refiections on Norman Long}, suggested that whatever amused the announcers was outside the "over-the-air" censorship laws. Nevertheless, one of the announcers was caughr napping. and he repeated something which I know quite well would be deleted if I set it down. "Lord Gallstones" and members of his party had a few amusing remarks to make later on jf
BREAKFAST IS NOT WHAT IT WAS.
v ‘try as 1 might, I have not been able tu accustom myself yet to the newer style in the 2YA breakfast session. The programmes may have beeu livened up to suit the popular taste,
and there may be. for all I know, thousands of brighter breakfast-
eaters who find these dull early winter mornings less of a trial when the joyous notes of somebody’s swing band playing rhythm smite their ears. If so, I can only say "God bless them," and switch off into a silence broken only by the rustling of the newspaper and the crackling of the bacon rind. Nevertheless. | ean’t help thinking that those of us who want soothing rather than stimnieting at breakfast are hardly done by. ~¥
NO MUSIC FOR LATE RISERS.
It seems appropriate to follow this up by inquiring if there is any puarticular reason why all the YA stations should go dumb between Y and 10 a.m. Me, I’m a lazy fellow, I know,
but quite olen don’t start breukfast till about S44. or later (having worked till sbont
two in the worning): and = theres 1 thing to encourage my consumption of toast except the voice of Aunt Daisy or Sylvia, or someone, telling abouc foodstuffs far more enticing than toast. In all New Zealand there ducsirt secm to be a bar of music on the air until 9.30-except the occasional brief interludeg which the ZB stations sandwich in between the recipes and the rousebold hints.
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Radio Record, 20 May 1938, Page 6
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1,752In the Wake of the Week's Broadcasts Radio Record, 20 May 1938, Page 6
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