A few hundred will see colour tonight

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33370, 31 October 1973, Page 18

A few hundred will see colour tonight

<Bg B. A. RENNIE) At 7.45 tonight a few hundred telex ision viewers in Canterbury will tune their colour television sets (no more than 400 of them) to the first of the .X.Z.B.C.’s regular colour broadcasts I —"The Thrillseekers.”

Later the same evening “The Odd Couple” will go out in colour followed later in the week by, among other things, “Cade’s County,” “Mod Squad.” and the “Black and White Minstrels,” to inaugurate the N-Z.B.C.’s colour coverage of the country which over the next two or three years will cost $l4 million. Tonight’s shows being broadcast from stations in Wellington. Auckland, Christchurch and elsewhere to reach 55 per cent of the population are the beginning of a system which should be broadcasting to nearly all the population an almost 100 per cent colour programme by the end of 1976—five years after the first recommendation for its introduction was made. The overseas content of the programme will all be in colour —within a year—and, unlike tonight’s stuff, not all of it will be American. The present American pre-

dominance is caused partlj by rearrangements for networking and partly by the saving of classier' materia: for the “winter” season after February, says Mi jTahu Shankland, co’ntrollei -of television programmes. ; "We have been buying colour versions of overseas shows for about six months and everything that’s available we now get in colour,’ , says Mr Shankland. “Aboul i .the only thing not in coloui ' I are old movies, which we ’ are continuing to buy anc , put on in black and' white rather than not show at all.’ : Costume dramas and exI pensive cultural shows like I “Civilisation,” Henry VIII,’ • and “Elizabeth R,” which • have already been shown ir • black and white, will, if thej ■ are repeated, be sent out ir colour. In some cases this : may mean buying a new • print, at 20 per cent more ■ than the cost of a mono- , chrome one. Local productions are more of a problem. In Christchurch, studio shows will.

y,for some time, be done with, * cameras from the $500,000 e outside broadcast van, which I means they will be limited i, until after the Commonwealth r Games. Large scale studio' r enterprises will await the opening of the Avalon com- ? plex in the Hutt Valley in s the middle of next year. s As might have been expected, the N.Z.B.C. is promising (or threatening) a * lot of “travelogue” type s ‘. documentaries. j One of the most praised e uses of colour facilities over- ” seas has been in news coverage. An English reviewer ’ once wrote that what in •• black and white would have , been a pedestrian report on ‘a French election, in colour J!had the smell and flavour of and garlic coming s out of the screen. i v! Colour film processing B ; equipment has not yet -1 arrived in Christchurch but even when it does its slowe'ness, and the lack of flex--iibility of colour film in ,' tricky lighting seem to pre- _ elude its use for ordinary news coverage. The commercial interest in (colour should be high. A [study in the early years of 'colour television in the United States showed that [colour commercials had an [average of nearly two and a I half times the effectiveness [of black and white ones, and i that recall of them was 12 i to 15 per cent higher. Because Christchurch and Auckland have no colour 1 projection equipment, colour ' commercials will be shown or the network only, at the ■ s.-.me cost as black and white . ones. They’ will cost advertisers about 30 per cent more ‘ to make. ’ It has been said that * colour television is a 5 secondary’ development and ( no substitute for good ideas, good scripts and good per- * formances. A great leap sideways. Once it has palled s[as a curiosity it will prob- * ably become" apparent that ■>,bad colour television is just 1 as, tedious as bad colour '• I movies. ">! Perhaps more money w’ill d I come from the conversion ? to network transmission. The d| director general of broadcasting (Mr Lionel Sceats) i >- said recently: “The revenue ■ x! and staff hitherto involved in [ i-[the separate channel system | 1 will now be used more pro- i n; ductively to provide a high- I ! grade service to the New [ h! Zealand community as a) whole.” I