Religious Broadcast Pattern Will Change

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30542, 10 September 1964, Page 18

Religious Broadcast Pattern Will Change

A new pattern for the broadcasting of religious sort ices is being inaugurated. This is announced in “Church and I eoplc. the official journal of the Anglican Church in New Zealand.

From September 14 devotional services from YA and YZ stations will be broadcast on a national link, in- . stead of local clergy broadcasting from local stations. From January 1 Sunday services from YA and YZ stations will be broadcast on a regional link, one service for the- North Island and one for the South. An Anglican service will be broadcast from one or other region every Sunday. YZ stations, taking the regional link, will broadcast from January a morning and an evening service, instead of only an evening service as at present. From October 4 the children’s Sunday session will be broadcast on a national link. From September 20 Sunday evening religious broadcasts will begin at 7.5 p.m. instead of 7 p.m., so that the New Zealand Broadcasting Corpor-

ation can put out a news bulletin at 7 p.m. Apart from this change in time X stations will continue their religious broadcasts as at present. The Anglican devotional service, from September 14, will be on every Monday at 10 a.m. on YA and YZ stations. The series will be opened by the Rev. G. Wilson, vicar of St. Peter’s, Wellington. The Anglican director of religious broadcasting (the Rev. C. F. Harrison) has listened to a large number of tape recordings so that the provincial committee on broadcasting and television can choose the best broadcasters.

He has also asked the diocesan broadcasting committee to send him the names of men of proven talent so that they may be invited to undertake the church’s ministry on the air after their names have been approved by the provincial committee.

Devotional services will be pre-recorded so that the best talent from all parts of the country can be used. To Improve Standard Mr Harrison told “Church and People” that the object of the new arrangement was to improve the standard of religious broadcasting. The whole country would hear the best preachers and choirs. Under present local arrangements diocesan broadcasting and television committees select the churches and preachers to go on the air. Under the national arrangement they will not do so, the choice being made by the provincial committee. The diocesan committees, however, will have an important role to play. They will listen to the national and regional broadcasts and send

their criticisms to Mr Harrison. A preacher will no longer be given a trial broadcast. The diocesan committee will organise radio and television schools and Mr Harrison and members of the N.Z.B.C. will run them. These schools will be the means by which new talent is found. The provincial committee on broadcasting and television decided at its August meeting as a matter of policy that for broadcasting and television one church might be used with another choir and perhaps a clergyman from a different church. This change will enable the best broadcasts to be made. In future a broadcast or telecast will be regarded as the work of the church as a whole and not a local activity.