ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT TALK, TALK, TALK

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30741, 4 May 1965, Page 10

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT TALK, TALK, TALK

I am a trifle tired of talk on television. There is so much of it in the news, in the discussions, and in the advertisements.

As I have said before, I can endure exhortations to save, save, save or to starve my pimples, but after a week of talk by news readers, commentators, and interviewers. I feel like asking for a sponsor to give me just 15 minutes of silence on my screen. I think this would be a public service to all TV viewers. Most of the talk is in the field of news and public affairs where the N.Z.B.C. concentrates its efforts. If the talk was always good, informed, and correct, I would not mind so much. I would have fewer complaints if the presentation of the news, the views, and the interviews was better.

LIKE JAVELINS On Channel 3 I have to listen to one news reader who sits at his desk and hurls words at me like javelins without the slightest trace of expression. All the news—local, national, and international—sounds exactly the same.

Another news reader who tries too hard to be expressive told me one evening that Sir Robert Menzies was 21 and had been Prime Minister of Australia for 16 years. On another occasion I learned that a wood pigeon had been fed on cotton Easter berries. Yet this news reader, like his colleagues, never forgets the mellifluous and pedantically correct pronunciation of every Maori place name. I am still puzzled why some of our excellent women announcers are not allowed to try their hand at the news. After all the N.Z.B.C. is allowing Cherry Raymond, perhaps the most effective woman interviewer on our television, to succeed lan Johnstone in the “Close Up” profile series. CHANGE IN REPORTS I don’t like the change in the presentation of “N.Z.B.C. Reports.” Perhaps I have become fixed in my viewing

habits but I object to the way in which national and overseas film clips are incorporated in the body of the news.

The change from the voice of the news reader to the voice of the commentator is irritating, and overseas film which . is necessarily dated

and it engages more confident and less serious questioners. I think the setting is too formal for the occasion, and the chairman, Nigel Bingham, takes too much part in the grimly serious proceedings. When only one man has the right of reply and three have the right to question, it is hard to avoid the impression of unequal odds. As a chairman, Mr Bingham should ask fewer questions and try to bring a touch of informality to the discussion.

So far the questioners in “Right of Reply” have been newspapermen. Apparently the N.Z.B.C. believes they are best fitted for this kind of programme. I disagree. Some have impressed me with their questioning when Mr Bingham has given them the opportunity; the others seem to believe their role is to perform like Mr Hamilton Burger or a Spanish inquisitor. And as talkers, few meet my standards.