Alarm only hitch

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33883, 1 July 1975, Page 1

Alarm only hitch

Reaction to TV2’s first night was generally good and, except for a false fire alarm, everything went without a hitch. The alarm sent staff and an audience in the Christchurch studio scuttling out into the cold at 7.43 p.m. A fault in a smoke detector set off the alarm and all appliances'from the central fire station turned out for their twenty-sixth false call of the day. The performers and audience of the pop show, “Norman,” which was about to be recorded when the alarm sounded, tumbled in their flimsy garb out into the freezing street, where they had to wait 20 minutes until the fault was cleared. The programme manager for TV2 (Mr Rod Cornelius) said the reaction to the channel’s broadcast was quite remarkable. After about two hours of transmission nearly 25 telephone calls had been received — and none were critical.

"On a normal night you would get about 25 calls and most of (hem would be against something. Usually only one in 10 is complimentary,” he said. “The reaction in Auckland was also good, and calls were received from as far away as Hamilton.” He attributes the success to the channel’s middle-of-the-road image and to thd length of time available for preparation. A channel engineer (Mr R. Gracie) said that no serious trouble occurred during the evening. “In the first hour about six or seven people who did not know how to adjust their sets rang up, but that was about all,” he said.

Reception in some parts of Christchurch was patchy, but it was very hard to define who would re-, ceive a good picture, said Mr Cornelius. “Most people received a generally good reception, and we are sorry that some areas did not.” TV2 supplement on pages 21 to 29