Viewers’ views

Press, 5 July 1977, Page 15

Viewers’ views

Standards Sir: —ln a recent radio talkback programme, a caller suggested that Rodney Bryant was only one of many broadcasters who were so annoyed at the declining standard of broadcasting since the N.Z.B.C. days that they had to leave. I was annoyed when Maurice Smyth hopped behind the word “gremlins” when trying to explain the poor operating during the telethon in Wellington. I am an ex-technician for the N.Z.B.C. and TV2, and I know and I’m sure Mr Smyth knows that the equipment is very rarely responsible for the poor programme presentation. It is caused 99 per cent of the time by inexperienced operators, and the reason why they are inexperienced is that by the time they do get experience they have had enough of the system and the wrong decisions made mainly in Auckland. — MAX ANDERSON.

Rodney Bry ant

Sir, — New Zealanders are champions in many fields, and far from modest. We now qualify once more — as champion squanderers of talent. We train doctors and scientists and promptly lose them overseas. They cannot afford to live here, even if they wish to. Now we lose Mr Bryant from television. He, with Mr Allpress in “The South Tonight,” created a programme of the highest rating. It was dropped with a promise of a similar replacement — we are still waiting. Whether it be interviews, documentaries, or their own unique humour, together or separately, these two are top television personalities. We see them about once a year on Telethon (a voluntary effort), where again they leave everyone else at the starting post. The piffling programmes offered them otherwise are an insult. Trans Tours’s gain is, sadly, our loss. I wish Mr Bryant well; my wishes for South Pacific Television are unprintable. — C. E. PATERSON (MRS).