Mr Dryden to resign job to seek TV warrant

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32848, 23 February 1972, Page 2

Mr Dryden to resign job to seek TV warrant

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, February 22. The man behind the disbanded Associated Network group, Mr G. W. J. Dryden, will “go it alone” in applying for a private television warrant.

At a press conference today, Mr Dryden said he would resign his executive position at U.E.B. Industries, Ltd, and would appeal for donations for a “public television trust fund” to finance an application to the Broadcasting Authority for a national network.

“I personally would hope for 20,000 subscribers, giving at least $1 each to this fund,” he said. "This is the minimum amount needed to match the kind of legal fire-power that the N.Z.B.C. can afford, out of television profits which have exceeded sl4m in the last three years.” If the warrant application succeeds, Mr Dryden envisages a corporation with at least a ssm public share issue.

"I would rather see 50,000 subscribers at $lOO each,

than 100 shareholders at $50,000,” he said. Trustees to the new fund would be announced soon. They would supervise donations to ensure that all money received was used to finance the application for an independent network—free from political and business pressures. "It will not be further financed by the Associated Network group,” Mr Dryden said.

Mr Dryden said he would begin immediately to try to persuade people prominent in public life to become trustees.

Asked if any of the “four knights,” from the original four companies might become trustees, Mr Dryden said: “You’d have to ask them, but when I last spoke with them on Friday, each was pretty fed-up.” GOVT ATTITUDE Asked if he thought the Government “procrastination,” which led the “four knights” and their companies to quit the field, reflected Government dislike for the concept of private television, Mr Dryden said: “There are people in the Government, including Mr Walker, who appear to want to see the N.Z.B.C. run a second channel.” Asked if there was significance in his holding his press conference in the U.E.B. theatrette, and whether

U.E.B. might support him by some financial device such as a retainer, Mr Dryden said: “There’s no significance other than I haven’t finished here yet and we’re the best of friends. “In the matter of continuing association with the firm, that hasn’t been discussed. I still have some commitments to them—such as addressing a seminar on colour television’s effect on packaging.” Asked how he would live —financially —Mr Dryden said: “I have sufficient investments to enable me to see the thing through, but I will probably need some help from the trust fund.”i MEETING TAPE

Before the press conference Mr Dryden listened to a Radio i telephone interview with the Minister of Broad-

casting (Mr Walker). Among other things, the Minister said that if the N.Z.B.C. or the Post Office were to run a transmitter which a private firm were to use, the charges would be based on costs, and would be devised by normal commercial procedure. Asked about a tape of a conference between Ministers and the Associated Network group last October—which Mr Dryden had asserted would embarrass the Government if it were made public —the Minister said that in accordance with normal practice, the tape had been erased after minutes were made from IT. ' The minutes were mailed immediately to the network, which had pot questioned them. “SPARSE PRECIS” Asked about this today, Mr Dryden said the minutes were a sparse precis, not a transcript. For example, Mr Adams- Schneider and other Ministers voiced the thought that a policy such as that the Government was following now would waste time. In theminutes all' that was recorded was the view expressed, but no names.