Avon manager resigns

Press, 9 June 1982, Page 6

Avon manager resigns

The man who founded Radio Avon, Mr Noel Wesney. has resigned again from his post as station manager. Mr Wesney. who set up Radio Avon in 1972, will remain a director of the company. He will not be replaced as station manager, but the post of programme manager, which was also held by Mr Wesney. will now be taken by one of the station’s announcers. Mr Ric Ditchburn.

Announcing Mr Wesney's resignation yesterday, the chairman of Radio Avon, Mr P. L. Mortlock, said that he was appreciative of Mr Wesney’s willingness to assume for almost two years the two demanding roles until other arrangements were made. Mr Wesney resigned in

1979 as executive director of the station "because of other business commitments.” Fourteen months later, he was back in the driving seat again, with Avon struggling to win back the many listeners it had lost to its rival, Radio New' Zealand's 3ZB. In 3 V 2 years, from November, 1978. to May,-1982, Radio Avon’s share of’the audience of listeners aged over 10 plummeted from 52 per cent to 22 per cent, a downwards slide which began in 1979 and has continued ever since, in spite of various efforts to reverse the trend.

In the same period, ratings for Radio 3ZB rose from about 20 per cent to 39 per cent, and 3ZM ratings rose from about 9 per cent to 19 per cent, Mr Mortlock said that the

company would now be run in four divisions, "reflecting the role of Radio Avon in Christchurch as well as network news services, and the role the company has with associated companies." Mr Wesney’s resignation coincides with an industrial dispute in the newsroom over staffing levels, which will go before the Arbitration Court on June 18; and with a difference of opinion on the board about ways of improving Avon’s ratings and profits. A special meeting of shareholders last November brought the station’s name into the limelight when the company reduced the number of directors from seven to five, effectively ousting a founding director. Mr Peter Greenslade.