Newsreader suspends himself

Press, 30 August 1989, Page 19

Newsreader suspends himself

A.K. Grant

on television

The well-known Christchurch solicitor and media potentate, Mr I. B. Prolix, proprietor, head of news and current affairs and chief newsreader for TV 1%, has suspended himself for two weeks for drinking on air. Mr Prolix told “The Press” of his decision at a press conference held in the lounge bar of the DB Bankcard, a hostelry much frequented by him (as indeed are all other hostelries). “I decided to suspend myself as a warning to others, and particularly to impressionable young people who see me as a role model,” Mr Prolix told the conference. "Broadcasting by its nature has to be a pretty freewheeling sort of activity, but there are some rules, some standards, which simply must not be broken, and drinking on air is one of them. I broke the rule, and now I must pay the price. What’ll you have?” Mr Prolix’s decision has provoked much controversy and a war of words with TV I%’s rivals, TVNZ and TV3. A spokesman for TVNZ, Ms Aline Sandihills, said that Mr Prolix’s announcement was "just a stunt.”

"He may well have been drinking,” Ms Sandihills told “The Press,” “but he certainly wasn’t on air. TV 1% has never been on air, and is never likely to be, if our information is reliable, which we believe it to be. It has no studio, no transmission equipment, no cameras or control room. No-one who was not in Mr Prolix’s immediate vicinity would have any idea whether he was drinking or not. Nothing resembling broadcasting can possibly have been going

on when Mr Prolix did whatever it was he claimed he was doing. TVNZ supports the need for ethical standards in broadcasting, blit does not believe that claims by Mr Prolix that he has suspended himself for drinking on air contribute in any way to the maintenance of such standards.”

The TV3 position is that not only was Mr Prolix not on air, he was not even drinking. “When the alleged bibulous broadcasting occurred,” the chief publicity officer of TV3, Mr Murray Madcap, told “The Press,” “poor old Prolix was completely insensible. He said it happened last Tuesday at 3.30 p.m. I had taken him out to lunch that day, to see just how serious TV 1% was. He was out of his tree by 2.30 and I had to put him in a taxi and send him home, with the result that several of his clients who were awaiting sentencing had to be remanded in custody for an extra day, and I understand there is going to be a Law Society investigation.

"Even if he had a channel, which he hasn’t, there is no way he could-have been broadcasting on it,

let alone drinking on it. TV3 supports the need for fresh and lively broadcasting, but does not believe that false claims of this nature are the correct way to achieve those qualities.”

The man at the centre of the controversy, Mr Prolix himself, asserts that the TVNZ and TV3 statements reveal “a tragic misunderstanding of the nature both of broadcasting and drinking.” “It may be,” he told the press conference at the DB Bankcard, “that my channel is not yet reticulated to consumers. That day will come, make no mistake about that. And I am constantly rehearsing for it. On the occasion in question I was broadcasting in the theatre of my mind, and despite what Mr Madcap says I was having a few drinks at home to steady my nerves and help me relax into my role as newscaster. But, as we all know, alcohol is a good servant but a bad master, and that is why, in the interests of New Zealand broadcasting, I closed myself down. I shall say no more about the whole sad affair. What’ll you have?”