Some festival events to miss live TV

Press, 19 February 1986, Page 25

Some festival events to miss live TV

PA Wellington Television New Zealand’s coverage of four International Arts Festival

events will not be live — missing a chance for FM simulcasts with the Concert Programme, festival organisers say. After pressure from organisers and supporters, TVNZ had decided to televise the two Michael Fowler Centre concerts by the East Berlin Staatskapelle (State orchestra) on March 20 and 21 and the Joan Sutherland recital at the Town Hall on March 11, and not just the Sutherland gala performance at the Fowler Centre on March 5 as planned. But the Sutherland gala performance would be a delayed telecast, screening an hour after the concert’s 8 p.m. starting time, the organisers said.

The Sutherland recital would be delayed two hours, screening at 10 p.m., and the Berlin Staatskapelle concerts would be featured on TVNZ’s Sunday afternoon “Opus” classical music programme some time after they were performed. All four concerts would be broadcast live in FM to Wellington listeners by the Concert Programme on 92.5 MHZ. The Concert Programme manager, Ms Helen Young, said she thought it was "silly” the concerts were not being televised live so that people could see them while hearing them in stereo.

She said also she was a little embarrassed because in her application to the Broadcasting Tribunal for the station’s short-term FM warrant for the festival she had given television simulcasts as one of the reasons. TVNZ’s head of entertainment, Mr Malcolm Kemp, said it would have been good to do live simulcasts, but the decision was not in his hands.

“I guess for a variety of programming reasons it wasn’t possible,” he said. The controller of programming, Mr Des Monaghan, said TVNZ had to consider where the programmes were most appropriately placed, given the likely audience reaction.

“The fact of the matter is that such material is not of interest to all viewers, and it will be hard to attract more than a small minority audience for them,” he said. Mr Monaghan said TVNZ wanted to ensure

the festival was a success and would promote it extensively without charge on both channels. “The festival will also feature extensively in news programmes and on ‘Kaleidoscope’ and the ‘Tonight Show,’ ” he said.