‘Cue’ needs to improve

Press, 28 August 1984, Page 11

‘Cue’ needs to improve

BRAD TATTERSFIELD

reviews the

first edition of the television magazine, “Cue.”

“Cue,” the first publication to attempt to seriously challenge the role of the “Listener” as New Zealand’s leading television-informa-tion magazine, has got off to an uninspiring start. Advance publicity for the new glossy has billed it as being “everything the ‘Listener’ isn’t.” However, the first issue gives the impression of being a watereddown version of the rival it intends to unseat. The A 4 page size of “Cue” makes it easier to handle than the “Listener,” which is awkwardly sized somewhere between a magazine and a tabloid newspaper. One or two of “Cue’s” columnists were quite good reading, particularly lan Fraser and Marcia Russell. Favourable comparisons with the “Listener” basically end there. Priced at $1 for 98 pages, the content of “Cue” is nowhere near as good value for money as the

“Listener,” at 65c for 140odd pages. The latter wins hands-down in both the range of stories it' covers and in its quality of journalism. To be fair, “Cue” does not claim to be anything more than a television guide which incorporates stories related to television, unlike the “Listener,” which covers a much wider range of subject matter. Surely if it intends to make an impression on the “Listener’s’’ circulation, however, “Cue” must come up with better quality material, even within the limited scope it has chosen for itself. Take the first issue’s cover story on the Australian soap opera, “The Young

Doctors,” for example. The piece is informative, but looks more like a public relations blurb than an indepth probe — hardly stuff to set the world on fire for a new magazine trying to make an impression. Most of the other stories are in the same vein, with the exception of a well written profile of Sir Laurence Olivier by an English theatre critic, Michael Billington. The editor of “Cue,” Phil Gifford, may have been wrong in assuming that the bevy of television personalities he has signed up as columnists can write as well as they perform on screen. Jon Gadsb/s pseudo-A. K. Grant column mimics

Grant’s style of humour by mixing fictitious characters and situations with real ones, although the copy does not come off as well as the original. Karyn Hay’s depth of music knowledge has often been questioned, although she undoubtedly picked up a bit over her years of fronting “Radio With Pictures.” “Cue” offers readers nothing new to entice readers away from the “Listener” other than a singlepage educational TV guide. In fact, the only thing “Cue” has in its favour so far are more lightweight stories and friendlier layout, which may win it some converts. “Cue’s” over-all appearance is more that of a television guide with a few publicity stories rather than of a full-blown magazine, however. Whether this will' prove sufficient to usurp the ’‘Listener’s” position remains to be seen.